Purge
by Brinker
Summary: The PTO didn't stay dead with Frieza and a new power has risen up to take his place. Vegeta knows how to survive the machinations of the Imperial Army but are the rest of Earth's protectors willing to do what it takes to stay alive? AU set five years after the Cell Games
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Vegeta stood on the Capsule Corp roof, looking into the sky at the unfamiliar craft hovering over West City. Around him were what little accounted for the Earth's protectors. The Z Warriors, as they called themselves, were a pathetic last line of defense, especially now that his rival was no longer among them. Even Gohan had let the last five years of peace time make him soft. The boy wasn't even a shadow of the fighter that defeated Cell. He supposed he was now the strongest of them. That thought gave him much less satisfaction than it once would have. It also vexed him that he now considering himself a part of their pack.

He turned his attention back overhead and concentrated on the energy contained in the ship. It seemed paltry. None of the thousands of ki signatures above even came close to challenging him. But collectively, they gave him pause.

"Who are they?" Gohan asked distantly, never moving his eyes from the sky.

"I don't know," the green man standing behind him responded, "but I'm not getting the sense that they're here to chat."

"This is absurd." Vegeta growled. "They're hardly a challenge. Just blow them out of the sky and be done with it. I have more important things to do today than deal with this bullshit."

"We can't." Krillin stammered. "The debris from the ship would take out half the city. Plus, we don't even know what their intentions are yet. Maybe they aren't here to do any harm."

The blond android next to him shook her head, one hand on her husband's shoulder. "Why else would they be here? Do we really want to risk them destroying the whole city before we do anything?"

"Maybe they're friendly?" Yamcha offered.

"Friends don't drop in unannounced over major cities and cause mass hysteria." Tien Shinhan responded. The tiny doll prince clung to his much larger body guard, looking concerned. "I'm scared Tien."

Vegeta was not going to give his opinion. He was not ready to share what he thought was in the sky. This was no invitation to an interplanetary summit, no friendly introduction. He knew better than anyone what this was. They needed to take action before…

A loud sonic boom ricocheted out from the ship and across the city, followed by a wave they couldn't see but knocked them off their feet all the same. Vegeta tried to get to get up but, before he could, another boom and another shock wave hit him squarely in the chest, forcing him to his knees again. He gathered his ki, igniting the spark to his Super Saiyan form but the familiar warm golden glow never came. Before he could register his shock, he was again forced to the ground by another powerful wave. As he looked around him, he saw all of the warriors similarly affected, except for the android. She was lifting Krillin off of the floor, attempting to revive him. Another wave hit and she seemed to be unaffected.

"EIGHTEEN" he shouted her name through the deafening noise. "GET BULMA." There was no longer any doubt what this was. This ship and the beings on it had not come in peace. He and the rest of the Earth's defenses were quickly being incapacitated. They had to get out of there.

"Vegeta, I'm a little busy at the moment. Your family isn't the only one that matters." She grunted at him as she lifted her husband onto her shoulders.

"God damn it listen to me you fucking toaster! We have to get out of this city! They're coming!"

As if on que, a horde of smaller crafts came pouring out of the larger one, swarming over the city, firing indiscriminately. The sound of explosions, toppling skyscrapers, and the screams of the people below filtered through the din of the invisible detonations. Eighteen's eyes widened at the sheer number of them as the destruction creeping closer. She looked back over to Vegeta who was struggling to maintain consciousness. The rest of the men around her had all succumb to the bizarre sounds that were coming from the ship. She shifted Krillin over her shoulder and kicked in the door leading from the roof to the Capsule Corp headquarters below. Not bothering with the maze of stairs, she launched directly down to the second floor of the Brief's family home and ran to the kitchen. Bulma, Chichi, and Mr. and Mrs. Briefs all stood before her, looks of panic and confusion on their faces. Trunks and Goten were passed out in their mother's arms, their small bodies shaking with every boom.

"What's going on out there?" Bulma gasped. "Trunks and Goten couldn't even stand after that sound started."

"We need to get out of here," she stated calmly, much more calmly than she felt. "The aliens, or whatever they are, are attacking the city. That sound has incapacitated everyone except us. We need a vehicle on the roof and we need to leave now."

"Oh god! Gohan!" Chichi exclaimed, running towards the stairs with Goten still grasped tightly in her arms. Bulma wasted no time digging through one of the kitchen drawers, grabbing a handful of capsules, and following after her. The group filed up the stairs as quickly as their human legs would carry them and busted out onto the roof just in time to see one of the smaller alien crafts zoom overhead, firing its strange weapon at the building just to the east of them, engulfing it in flames.

Bulma tossed a capsule over to the hover pad, revealing a large armored hover vehicle. As the smoke cleared, she took in the devastation all around her. Bodies were scattered at her feet. The only reason she knew they were alive was the shudder that passed through them with each wave of sound that emanated from the enormous craft before them, much like her son in her arms. The city was ablaze. The familiar West City skyline was all but leveled. She could hear screams and cries for help from the people trapped in the building next to them. She knew these sights and smells. She had seen it before. First when Vegeta had come to them, then on Namek, then Cell. It had always fallen on her to undo the destruction when it was all over and it likely would again.

Eighteen was unceremoniously hauling the much larger bodies of her friends and allies onto the vehicle Bulma had uncapsulated, stacking them on top of each other to make them fit. She was just dragging Vegeta to his feet when she saw Bulma dart past her and back towards the stairs.

"Bulma! Where the hell are you going?" Eighteen yelled as she dropped Vegeta into the armored car.

"I have to get something! I'll be right back!" Bulma screamed through the chaos.

She flew back through the building, Trunks still clutched to her chest. Down the stairs she descended, two at a time, until she reached her lab on the basement level. She roughly pulled drawers from her desk, emptying them out on the floor, searching for the dragon radar. She finally found it in the second to last drawer fishing it out from among the junk and stuffing it in her back pocket. She quickly rounded back to the stairs, but before she could make it up the first flight, an explosion rocked the building above her. She fell and rolled over Trunks, protecting him from the sparks that flew from the lights above as they dropped from their casements in the ceiling.

As she rose to her feet, she felt an arm snake around her neck, trapping her against a hard body behind her. She kicked bit and clawed at the blue, inhuman looking arm but the more she fought the quicker she felt herself fading. Helplessly, she felt Trunks fall to the floor as black stars formed in her eyes and unconsciousness followed.

Back on the roof, Eighteen was impatiently waiting for Bulma to return and trying to convince Chichi and the Briefs to get on the hovercraft without her.

"We won't leave until she comes back but you need to get in the car." Eighteen spoke deliberately, as if to a child.

"I'm sure she'll be back in just a moment, dear." Mrs. Briefs spoke softly and unnaturally cheerfully. "Maybe I should go back downstairs and get Trunk's car seat."

"No! We don't have time for this! You need to…" Eighteen was cut off by the sudden look of panic in all three human's faces.

"OH GOD," Chichi screamed.

She turned around just in time to see one of the alien crafts pull up and take aim. Eighteen crouched and dove as the white hot beam of light grazed her side. The roof below their feet shook and cracked. Mr. and Mrs. Briefs were blown off the roof to the ground below. Chichi's scorched body lay prone, only a few feet away, still clutching Goten.

Eighteen struggled to her knees and pain radiated through her right arm and leg. The small ship landed on the roof and two clearly inhuman things dropped from the doors and they opened with a hydraulic hiss. One was a monstrously huge creature with bulging eyes and orange scales. The other, a hunched squalid looking blue humanoid man. They both wore what looked like battle armor.

"How thoughtful of them to stay together for us. We might finish this job before sunset." The giant orange one said jovially. "I'm picking up a reading from inside the building. Go check it out. I'll deal with this," he said as he gestured towards the other occupants on the roof. The blue man just nodded as he scurried towards the door and down the stairs.

Eighteen again attempted to regain her footing but the scaly man was already coming towards her.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked as he shoved her back to her knees. A large orange hand dropped down next to her, roughly turning over Chichi's body and lifting up the boy underneath her by one arm. He sniffed the boy and chuckled. "Oh good. He's still alive."

"What do you want from us?" Eighteen growled out, feeling bile rising in the back of her throat.

"I don't ask questions, lady," he responded nonchalantly as he pulled a baton from a holster at his hip, "I just follow orders." He pressed the wand to Eighteen's neck and a painful electric shock flowed from the point of contact to every extremity, knocking her out cold.

* * *

"Vegeta... Vegeta... Come on, wake up!"

He was still dreaming. He vaguely heard someone calling his name but it didn't bother him. He just needed a few more minutes of sleep. He must have trained too late into the night again. He reached down to pull the sheets over himself but he couldn't find them. He padded the space next to him for his mate but she wasn't there. Awareness began to seep back into his clouded brain as he realized he was not in his bed. When he opened his eyes he immediately felt the throbbing pain of a concussion, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

As his vision cleared he saw Krillin standing over him tapping the side of his face. "Come on man. You gotta wake up. We need to get the hell out of here."

"Touch me again and I break your face."

"Oh good. Violent threats," Eighteen looked down on him over the smaller man's shoulder. "We thought you might have suffered permanent brain damage."

Tien stood tall in the opposite corner, Chiaotzu still clinging to his shoulder, looking close to tears. Yamcha was next to him, looking equally panicked.

Vegeta hauled himself into a sitting position, ignoring the pounding ache in his head and willing his eyes to remain open. He was sitting in a small white room, too brightly lit. Florescent lights beat down overhead, nearly blinding him. The stark white tiles of the floor extended up the walls, onto the ceiling, and down a long corridor in front of him. Empty rooms lined the walls all the way down the hallway, ending with a giant steel door.

"None of you can break through a door without my help? You're all more useless than I thought," He picked himself up off the floor and took a running start at the door but, instead of melting through steel as he expected, he hit an impenetrable wall of electric current. He willed his limbs to pass through the barrier to no avail. He pounded his fists against it, causing a cascade of blue sparks at the point of impact.

"Yeah, we've already tried that," said Yamcha. Vegeta sneered at him, clearly unappreciative of his sarcastic tone.

If he couldn't break the door down with his fists, he would blast it down with his ki. He drew energy into the palms of his hands, preparing to loose it at the barrier.

But nothing came. There was no light, no warmth, no magnetic energy between his splayed hands. He suddenly remembered what he had been doing right before waking up in this place. He had been trying to power up, trying to transform into his Super Saiyan form. Trying and failing. He could feel his power source in his core where it had always been but, no matter how hard he reached for it, it was just out of his grasp. He knew this feeling. He had felt it many years before. His fingers clutched at his throat, unsurprised by the metal he felt encircling it. Icy dread swept through him. The memory of helplessness crawled into his chest. Sweat broke over his brow. He could feel the ghost of chains around his wrist and ankles. He could feel the echo of hopelessness and torture he couldn't escape.

"I feel it too," Krillin said behind him. "We can't use our ki." Vegeta looked around him and noticed for the first time the metal bands clasped around the other's necks.

The grating sound of metal against metal drew his attention as the heavy bolt across the steel door shifted to the side and the door swung open. Three bodies glided through the entrance, seemingly held aloft by the bands around their necks. Piccolo, Gohan and Goten all floated down the long corridor followed by a large fishlike creature. The overgrown goldfish was wearing familiar looking battle armor over a tight black uniform. The white and gold chest plate was topped by pointed pauldrons over the shoulders. A belt hung protecting the lower extremities. There was no mistaking it for anything other than the uniform of an Imperial Army soldier.

The bodies and the soldier stopped outside the electric barrier. The fish man dug into the pocket of his uniform and pulled out what looked like a television remote control, pressing buttons as he pointed it at them. Vegeta felt the collar around his neck pull tightly around his throat pushing him backward. It dug into his skin as he struggled against it, but he could feel his feet sliding against the smooth white floor towards the wall of the cell. The collar stuck to the wall like a magnet to metal. He tried to pull himself free but the collar wouldn't budge. The other men around him were similarly stuck, clawing at their throats. The guard opened an electrical panel outside of the cell and pressed a single button. The invisible wall took on a pale purple glow and the three slack bodies were roughly shoved through by the soldier before the wall disappeared again and they all fell back to the floor.

"Enjoy your stay." The orange man sung as he walked back down the corridor and through the steel door, bolting it behind him.

The room remained quiet for some time as the warriors took stock of their predicament.

"Where the hell are we?" Piccolo spoke first.

"Likely on the main ship or en route to it." Vegeta responded.

"Gohan what's happening? Where's mommy? That man was scary."

"It's okay Goten. We're leaving soon. I'm sure mom is fine. We'll find her." Gohan put his younger brother in his lap to quiet his tears.

Vegeta scoffed at Gohan's tuttering over the brat. He would never have tolerated such sniveling from his own son.

His son. The reminder brought a sick feeling like a lead weight on his chest.

"Where are Trunks and Bulma? Were they with you?"

"No," Eighteen replied, "Bulma took Trunks back into the building before we were attacked. She said she needed to get something. I don't know what happened to her."

Vegeta didn't know whether to feel relieved or not. Part of him wanted his mate and son here with him, to see with his own eyes that they were safe. The more rational part of him knew that anywhere was safer than the room he was in right now. Bulma was capable and calm in a crisis. She would know what to do to keep herself and Trunks safe. If she had put the facts together that he had so far, she would already be in her space capsule with Trunks, orbiting the earth and figuring out her next move. At least that's what he hoped.

"What are these things around our necks?" Eighteen brought her hand to the circlet around her throat.

"It's a ki dampener," Vegeta answered.

"I don't use ki," she responded.

"Can you use your power?" Krillin asked his wife hopefully. Eighteen seemed to be unaffected by the strange sound wave that knocked the rest of them out. Maybe she would be similarly unaffected now. Eighteen strained to concentrate, he brows knit together as she raised her hand in front of her face.

"No," she said and let out a dejected sigh.

"Well I guess it also dampens whatever toasters run on."

Eighteen glared at Vegeta menacingly. "You seem to know an awful lot about what's going on here. Is there something you would like to share with the rest of us?"

"Yeah," Yamcha chimed in. "That alien that dumped us in here was dressed just like you when you first came to Earth. Do you know him?"

"Yeah, we're best friends. We went to sleep away camp together." Vegeta spit sarcastically. He resented the implication that he was involved in what was going on. If he was going to waste his time killing the weaklings in this cell with him, he would have done it years ago and it wouldn't require some elaborate ruse, as they seemed to be suggesting.

"I think you have some explaining to do." Piccolo stood before him, crossing his arms.

"I've never seen that thing before in my life, but the uniform tells me he's in the Imperial Amy, likely low rank enlisted."

"What is the Imperial Army?" Tien asked.

"The military wing of the Planet Trade Organization, the PTO. Frieza's army."

"But Frieza is dead." Gohan's voice shook. Though they had faced stronger enemy's since Namek, Frieza still held a special place in the boy's nightmares.

"I'm aware he's dead. And I personally destroyed every last loyalist left in the galaxy."

"So, who are they working for if not Frieza." Piccolo questioned.

"I don't know. I haven't exactly been keeping up with the interplanetary news cycle. My only guess is that some war lord took advantage of the power vacuum made by the death of the Colds and installed himself as the new Emperor. I strongly considered doing the same myself not long ago."

"Why did they come to Earth?" Krillin wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"To purge," Vegeta stated mater-of-factly. "They'll kill everyone and everything that isn't of use to them, strip the planet of its choicest natural resources, and auction what's left to the highest bidder."

The room went silent around him. No one could speak or move. Then panic started to set in.

"We've got to get out of here." Yamcha began to pant, his hands planted on his knees to keep himself upright. "I need to get out of here."

"What are we doing?" Tien exclaimed, "Are we just going to sit here and wait while they 'purge' our home?" He gripped the metal band around his neck and pulled. "How the hell do you get this thing off?"

"DON'T FUCKING MOVE!" Vegeta shouted, silencing everyone else around him. "Don't. Move. If you damage that thing, it will blow your head off and the rest of us with it."

Tien slowly unhooked his finger from around the collar and brought his hands back down to his sides. "So how do we get them off?"

"We don't," Vegeta replied.

"So, we're just giving up?" Gohan tried to keep his voice down. Goten had cried himself to sleep and, mercifully, hadn't heard anything Vegeta explained to them.

"We wait for an opening." Vegeta looked around conspiratorially. He knew they were being watched and likely listened to. He scanned the ceiling and saw a small globe like devise hanging in one corner. The black eye in the center leisurely rotated left to right, sweeping the room.

"We need noise." His eyes landed on the orange bundle in Gohan's arms. He took the boy by the back of his small gi and yanked him from his brother, shaking him awake.

"Wake up kid!" Goten's heavy lids fluttered open and a yawn spread across his face. Before he could rouse himself fully, Vegeta grabbed the boy's arm and twisted it behind his back, just hard enough to get the brat screaming.

"What are you doing?" Piccolo lunged for Goten but Vegeta tossed the boy to Eighteen who tried unsuccessfully to comfort him. Gohan furiously advanced on Vegeta drawing back a fist and swinging towards his face. Vegeta caught it before it could make contact with his jaw.

"We need a diversion." Vegeta said over Goten's pitiful wails, still gripping Gohan's shaking fist. "They are surveilling us and we can't talk unless something louder is downing us out." Gohan stopped struggling at that and Vegeta released him.

"You didn't have to hurt him" Gohan said, cradling his bruised fist.

Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha, and Krillin were now huddled around glaring at him.

"You're a Grade A piece of shit." Piccolo stated.

"You can kiss the boy's boo boo later. Right now, we need to focus on getting the hell out of here." Vegeta stepped closer to the group and lowered his voice. "The control panel for the shield is on the other side of that wall." He motioned to the half wall containing the shield barrier. "There is only one surveillance bot and it's blind to that corner for a few seconds per minute. I'll break into the panel from this side and temporarily disable the shield. It can only be a few seconds. If it is down for too long they'll know and knock us out again. We lower the shield just long enough for me to slip out. There are empty cells along the corridor. I'll hide in one of them and when the guard comes back in I can take him out while his back is turned. He'll have the control to the ki dampeners on him. We remove the collars, take out the rest of the crew, find an escape pod, and get back to Earth. Clear?"

They all nodded but Piccolo looks skeptical. "Are you sure you know what you're doing with the control panel?"

"I've watched Bulma fiddle around with her electronics. I can figure it out." He wasn't lying but he may have slightly overstated his proficiency. He had learned a thing or two watching Bulma fix the various training aids he destroyed on a regular basis, but he was by no means the technical genius his mate was. He would just have to hope the mechanisms weren't overly complex. If all else failed, he would just rip all the wires from the wall. That ought to do the trick.

By this time, Goten's wails had petered out to hiccupping whines. Gohan took the boy back from Eighteen, wiping the stale tears from his red and puffy face. Krillin leaned in close to her ear, sharing their plan for escape.

Vegeta casually meandered over to the wall containing the electrical panel. The shield was contained within a squared off arch, a partial wall on each side and a beam above. The wall was tiled and he would need to remove one of them to reveal the electronic components behind. Even without the use of his ki, he could shatter the tile with his fist but that would draw too much attention. They would be incapacitated before he could disable the shield. He noticed that the grouting around the tiles looked like some kind of acrylic latex caulking. He could cut through it if he had something sharp and thin enough.

He looked around the room for a tool he could use. The guards would have searched them while they were unconscious for any obvious materials that could be used to aid an escape. The other warriors starred back at him, fidgeting, waiting for the next move. Eighteen curled her mused hair behind her ear, tucking a lose strand in with the longer strands pinned to the back of her head.

There is was. If the bald man's bathroom looked anything like his, it was scattered with the small wire pins women used to keep their hair in place. He positioned himself in front of Eighteen, looking at each side of her head before he turned her around to examine the back.

"Can I help you?" Eighteen exclaimed stepping away from him to restore her personal space.

"Shut up and stand still." He spotted the dark metal in the mass of blonde and pulled it out with ease. He bent it straight and bit off the rounded plastic covering the end.

Vegeta returned his attention back to the surveillance bot. It swiveled away from the corner he was standing in and he estimated the time he had to work. He needed a spotter.

"Green man" Piccolo glared at him, not wanting to acknowledge the degrading nickname Vegeta had bestowed on him. Vegeta covered his mouth with his hand and whispered under his breath knowing Piccolo could hear him.

"I need you to keep an eye on that camera in the left corner of the room. When the lens lands on the metal door, cough or knock on something to signal me." Piccolo nodded his understanding and positioned himself facing the camera.

Vegeta waited until the bot reached the designated spot and then went to work. He slipped the hair pin between the tiles, quickly cutting through the grouting until he heard the Namekian clear his through, returning to an inconspicuous pose. He resumed again when he heard a knock against the wall, removing the tile to look behind it. He found the control box and tore through the thin metal backing, silently chastising himself at how difficult it was without his ki. He looked at the wires that lay behind the bent metal and blanched. This was not the easy one wire pull he thought it might be. Inside the box lay tangled ropes of fiber optic cables meshed with thin conductive wires, seemingly leading nowhere. He replaced the tile and leaned against the wall taking a deep breath. He had literally no idea what he was doing.

"Shit"

All eyes again landed on him. That couldn't be a good sign.

"Time for Plan B." He would have to destroy the box and hope it brought down the shield.

He heard the harsh screech of the bolt lifting on the steel door at the end of the corridor. This was bad. The guard was back. He must not have been as discreet as he thought. They were caught.

The door opened and the only thing he saw was blue and lavender before thick coils of terror and rage twisted around his gut and squeezed.

"No."

The pleasant fiction that his mate and son were safe in space, waiting for him, popped like a soap bubble. He could have done this. He could have gotten out of here by sheer force of will and brute strength if he had to. He was used to fighting with reckless disregard for his own life, but he couldn't be so careless with theirs.

"Turn around."

He had been clinging to the last vestiges of his self-control with white knuckles since he felt the metal of the collar around his neck. Now it was slipping through his clenched fingers like sand as his mate and son were led towards the cell.

"Turn around, put them back where you found them!"

He threw himself at the shield, pounding his fists against it, causing a ripple of sparks but, as they came to stand on the other side of the barrier, Vegeta regained his temporarily lapsed composure and went deadly still.

"Bring them back right now and maybe, just maybe, I will consider allowing you to live after I've torn your limbs off." He saw the momentary fear flash across the guard's face at his whispered threat before it was replaced by a sneer.

"Tough talk but you'll never get the chance," the man taunted as he pulled a devise from his pocket.

"I will get out of here, and when I do, believe me when I say…" Vegeta again felt the collar tightening around his neck as he was roughly pulled backward and stuck to the wall. He and the rest of the warriors struggled impotently as the shield was lowered and the two new occupants were shoved into the now crowded cell. They again slid down the wall to the floor, once the shield was back in place.

"If it were up to me, I would have killed the woman. She's too weak to even warrant putting a collar on. A waste of time keeping her alive. Luckily for you, I don't get paid to make decisions." The guard chuckled to himself as he walked back down the corridor, bolting the door behind him.

Vegeta ignored the guard and instead quickly scanned Bulma and Trunks for injuries. Bulma had the beginnings of a bruise around her neck and a thin trickle of blood coming from gash on her forehead. Trunks seemed to be unharmed but had a ki dampener secured around his small neck.

"Dad!" the boy exclaimed, struggling out of his Mother's grasp and flinging himself around Vegeta's legs. Bulma wasn't far behind, draping herself around his neck as her legs gave out from under her.

"I thought you were dead!" she cried into his shoulder. "I thought we were alone!"

Vegeta was supremely uncomfortable with this display but privately savored the contact, allowing himself a few moments of relief that they were alive and breathing before pushing them away.

"There's no need for the waterworks, woman. I'm fine. Everyone is fine."

Bulma looked around her, finally able to catch her breath, seeing that her friends were safe. The last time she saw them they were writhing and unconscious on the Capsule Corp. roof. The last thing she remembered was fighting for air and trying to get back to them before she woke up on a cold metal floor. Trunks was shaking her, begging for her to open her eyes. He had a collar around his neck. It didn't take Bulma long to form a theory once she got her bearings.

Vegeta hardly ever talked about his past but, when he did, she paid rapt attention. The attack began in a major city. The planets strongest defense was neutralized before the offensive began. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to believe that the worst atrocities of the universe had finally found them on their quiet, peaceful planet, but she knew they would eventually. Vegeta had warned her that they wouldn't be safe forever.

That's when she remembered what she had risked separating from the group for, what would turn this whole thing around. She reached into her back pocket, pulling out the dragon radar. She couldn't believe they hadn't taken it from her. Maybe they hadn't seen it. Maybe they didn't know what it was. She knew she had to hide it before they realized their mistake. She dug around in her pockets again, finding an empty capsule, and enclosing it within. No sooner had she buried the capsule in her bra were they collected from the room by that hideous fish faced man who brought them here.

Bulma scanned the room again, mentally checking off all of the familiar faces. "Where are my parents?" They weren't in the cell. The feeling of safety and relief at seeing Vegeta and the rest of the gang began to seep out of her again. "And Chichi. What about Chichi?"

"Yeah where's mommy?" Goten added. "I want mommy Gohan. She was with us before we came here. Did you see her Aunt Bulma?"

"No sweetheart. She wasn't with me." Goten and Gohan's faces fell.

She looked to Eighteen. She was the last one to see them. She would know where they were but Eighteen just looked down at their feet, refusing to make eye contact with any of them.

"Your parents and Chichi…" she trailed off, "they didn't make it."

"No!" Gohan cried, dropping Goten to the floor and grabbing Eighteen by the shoulders. "Why didn't you say anything! Why didn't you tell me before?!"

"I didn't know what to say. We were all distracted." Eighteen looked guilty, still refusing to look Gohan in the eye.

Bulma felt tears sting at the corners of her eyes. Her parents and her best friend's wife were gone and likely hadn't been granted a painless end. She tried not to conjure images of how they had been killed or whether they had suffered.

"Where is mommy Gohan? I want to go get her right now!" Goten was yelling at his brother, pulling on his pant leg, trying to get his attention. Gohan was silently shaking, tears pouring down his cheeks as he still clung to Eighteen's shoulders.

"We can't get mom Goten. She's not here anymore. She's with dad." Gohan choked and sobbed again as he spoke of his father.

"But where is dad? How do we get to him?" Goten began leaking tears himself, as partial understanding came to him. Piccolo picked the boy up and put his hand on Gohan's shoulder.

"Remember what I told you kid?" Piccolo said as softly as his gravelly voice would allow. "Your dad lives with King Kai in Otherworld. That's where we go when we don't have a body anymore."

"Mommy doesn't have a body anymore?" Piccolo shook his head.

"But how will she make us lunch and read us stories if she doesn't have a body anymore?" Goten began to cry in earnest now, finally grasping that his mother no longer existed in the same way that his father did not exist.

Bulma's heart clenched as she watched the bright little spark of innocence, the one that reminded her so much of his father, dim and flicker in the boy's eyes. His tender understanding of death was so pure and so sad. His parents were gone. She couldn't let him suffer like this. She didn't want to see the light in him go out any more than she wanted it extinguished in her own son.

"Your mommy is visiting your daddy for a little while." Bulma said as she wiped away her tears, taking the boy into her own arms away from Piccolo. "And when she's done visiting, we'll ask Shenron to give her body back to her."

"You mean with the dragon balls?"

"Yup. And then she can tell you all about the adventures she had with your dad while she was gone."

"Ok. How long is she visiting with dad?" Goten whimpered, slowly drying his eyes.

"I don't know. She hasn't seen him in a long time. Can you be a good boy while she's away?"

"Yes. I'll be good." Bulma set the boy down on his feet as he seemed to have recovered from his trauma.

The rest of the group also seemed to perk up at the mention of the dragon balls. Gohan was smiling at her, his hope restored. Piccolo, however, was staring daggers at her. She didn't understand that man sometimes.

"First things first. We need to get out of here. It's a good thing I showed up. This is my area…" she was cut off by Vegeta tugging on her arm. He had that look on his face that meant he knew something she didn't. He tilted his head over to the corner of the room. At first, she didn't see anything unusual but then she caught the small white orb on the ceiling. They were being watched.

* * *

A/N: So that was the first chapter of my very first fic in over ten years! I've been sitting on this for a while and I am so excited to finally share it. I'm a little rusty and I don't have a beta (yet) so please bear with me until I get into the swing of things. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please, please please leave a comment, even if you hated everything about it. I would love to hear whatever criticism you have so I can improve on future chapters. I already have a few written so I expect my update schedule to be fairly regular.

If you would like to volunteer to serve as a second set of eyes on future chapters before they go up, please message me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The shell shock was starting to wear off. Bulma needed to do something useful. They had been in way worse situations before. They would break out and do what they did best… save the world. Just another Tuesday. No reason to panic. But looking around her, it didn't seem like the rest of the group was so optimistic. They all looked drawn and nervous. Piccolo looked a slightly sicker shade of green. Vegeta was still holding onto her arm. His palms were sweaty. It was unnerving that even he seemed to be less than confident they would make it out of this current predicament.

"What's going on? How long have you guys been in here?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe an hour or more. It's hard to say." Krillin responded.

"Is that force field really that strong?" Bulma waved her hand over the invisible barrier. She could feel little pin pricks of electricity jump into her palm and travel up her arm. It seemed impossible that such a thing could keep this lot trapped.

"I don't think any of us would have a problem breaking through it if we could access our ki." Piccolo said, gesturing to the metal around his neck.

"Is that what those collars do? Drain your ki?" Again, Bulma was stunned that some bits of metal and plastic could keep the most powerful beings in the universe contained. Stunned but maybe just a little bit smug. The scientist in her gloated at the idea of technology besting brute strength.

Vegeta lowered his head to her ear and whispered, "Do you think you can get these things off?"

"Have you tried tearing them off? The metal doesn't look that thick," she whispered back.

"There's a bomb in it. At least that's how the ones I've seen before worked. There's no reason to think these are any different. If we tamper with them, they'll blow"

Bulma's eyes widened. That complicated things. She examined the devise around Vegeta's neck. She was almost positive it was emitting some kind of radio wave, interfering the bodies' natural electrophysiology. She could see a tiny screw holding two sections of metal together. If she could open the thing up, she could disarm whatever explosive was inside. But that would require very specialized tools.

"I'm sure I could if we were in my lab. I don't have much to work with here."

Vegeta rummaged around in his pants pocket and pulled out what looked like a straightened bobby pin.

"Is that a joke?" Bulma asked incredulously. "You want me to disarm a bomb with a hair pin?"

"I thought you were a genius?"

"I'm not magician."

Vegeta pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He was going to have to do this with the collar on. It wasn't impossible, but it was going to be messy. He looked back over to the loose tile on the wall. The only upside to having Bulma here in mortal danger was that he was sure she could figure out the mess contained in the control panel.

"I've opened the panel that controls the force field from the backside. It's behind the tile on that wall." Vegeta motioned to the half wall behind him. "If you can figure out how to bring it down, we could take the guard by surprise. "

Bulma looked over to the wall and noticed that one of the tiles seemed to be loose.

"There's a blind spot in in the camera for a few seconds. I'll tell you when it's safe to look." Vegeta stayed silent for a few moments before he tugged on her sleeve.

"Now."

She quickly removed the tile and found a tangle of wires. She dug into them to find where the main power source connected to the button she had seen the guard press before she was shoved into the cell. She felt Vegeta urgently tug on her arm again, so she replaced the tile.

"Can you bring it down?" Vegeta asked hopefully.

"Of course."

"Turn it off for a few seconds. Let me through. Then bring it back up." Vegeta brought his attention back to the surveillance bot tracking its movement. "Go now."

Bulma pulled the tile back out again as fast as she could. She found the wire she needed in the dense nest, followed it with her fingers until she located where it ended, and then gently twisted. The wall flickered purple for a few seconds until it became permanently visible. Vegeta immediately sprung up, exited the cell, pressing his body closely to the far wall. He dove into one of the dark empty cells along the corridor, disappearing behind the arched entrance. Bulma re-engaged the wire and replaced the tile, letting out the breath she had been holding through the entire procedure.

Then they waited. It took a lot longer than Bulma anticipated for someone to figure out something was amiss. They sat in silence for what seemed like a solid half hour before she heard the bolt open on the steel door.

"Where is he? Where is that fucking monkey?" a giant orange scaly man in body armor came barreling down the hallway before stopping in front of the cell, banging his fist against the force field.

"You all probably think your so clever, but I know he didn't escape. There's no way he got past the…"

A muscled arm looped around the guard's neck and tightened, putting an end to his tirade. He chocked and clawed at the arm cutting off his oxygen supply. The struggle lasted only a few seconds before the alien's head twisted unnaturally on his shoulders, accompanied by a sickening crack. Vegeta dropped the body to the floor and began patting it down, searching though the pockets and under the armored plates.

"Shit!" He kicked the body in the ribs to emphasize his curse, getting no reaction from the dead man. "He doesn't have the remote control on him."

Bulma felt Trunks clutching at her leg. She looked down at her son's blanched face. He was staring at the body splayed on the floor. "Mom is that man dead?" She realized that Trunks had never seen violence like this. He had never met the murderous side of his father.

"No. Dad just put him to sleep," she lied without remorse. There was plenty of time for Trunks to learn just how easy it was for Vegeta to kill when the circumstances dictated. They would have that talk once they were safe again.

"What do we do now?" Yamcha exclaimed, looking incredulously at Vegeta.

"We stick to the plan. We get out of here and get back to Earth." Krillin spoke up.

"And how are we supposed to break through a solid steal door without our ki?" Tien objected.

"And who knows how many of those guys are out there." Chiaotzu added.

"What we _can't_ do is stand around with our dicks in our hands while they figure out what we've done and knock us out again!" Vegeta was getting real tired of having holes poked in his escape plan.

"There's an electronic mechanism to that door. I saw it when we walked in." Bulma interjected. "If I can override this one, that should be a piece of cake. As for the collars, I saw the antenna on the remote control that guy used. It can't have a radius of more than thirty feet."

"Stealth escape it is." Piccolo looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Just then, a high-pitched screech of a siren sounded from every corner and the overhead lights changed from florescent to strobing red.

"Great. Real stealthy guys." Eighteen huffed.

Bulma didn't waste any time ripping off the loose tile from the wall and yanking the power cord she had previously handled with care. The field took on a maroon hue in the flashing red light and the occupants of the cell filed out and down the hallway, stepping over the body of the guard.

At the end of the corridor, they could see the steel door up close. It was obviously built to look intimidating. Vegeta had no more patience or time for neat tile work. He plunged his fist into the wall next to the door, pulling out ceramic and debris with his hand.

Bulma shuffled past the congregation piled in the narrow space and looked into the hole that had been created. She could see the bolt and lock just below and wires leading to the control panel on the other side.

"Screw it." she said, reaching in and pulling every wire she could get her fingers on, desperately hoping she wouldn't be electrocuted for her trouble.

A few sparks emitted from the wall and the sound of the bolt sliding across metal signaled her success. Vegeta slowly pulled on the giant handle, opening the door by a crack, and put his eye to the opening to get a better look at what lay on the other side.

"The escape pods will be on the starboard side of the ship. Follow behind me and stay together," Vegeta said in a clipped no nonsense tone. "Anyone caught gets left behind or we all go down." He made eye contact with every single one of them to ensure they understood.

Bulma collected Trunks into her arms and Gohan did the same with his brother as they prepared to flee. The door opened and they spilled into the hallway outside, forming a tight unit back to back. Vegeta was at the helm, Piccolo and Krillin brought up the rear, Bulma and the children were protected in the center. No side was left undefended. Vegeta led them quickly down the right side of the hallway, the rest following efficiently in their formation. The red lights and sirens continued to flash overhead, muffling the sound of their egress.

As they came to a blind corner, Vegeta pressed himself close to wall, motioning for the others to stay back. He glanced as far as he dared around the corner without giving up his position. There were two soldiers about midway down the corridor, stationed on either side of a set of double doors, likely their escape route. Neither looked particularly intimidating. He could easily dispatch both but wouldn't risk doing it alone without the element of surprise. Either one of them could be carrying a control to their collars. He reached for the nearest man behind him without looking, confident that any one of them could handle the task. He pulled Yamcha up next to him… ' _except this one_ ' he thought disgusted, and decided on Tien instead.

"You take the one on the left. Watch for blasters. Don't let him reach for anything." Tien nodded in agreement, furtively peeking around the corner over Vegeta's head.

Both men flung themselves around the corner and towards the soldiers as quickly as their ki-less bodies would allow. Vegeta buried his fist in the stunned face of the soldier before he could even react to the attack. It only took one more blow to the head to knock him out. Vegeta pressed his boot to the prone man's throat, crushing his windpipe for good measure. He lifted his head to observe Tien's progress and discovered that he had dispatched the other soldier almost as quickly but hadn't made the final blow.

"Kill him or he'll come to and alert the others of our location." Vegeta watched impatiently as Tien hesitated.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Vegeta growled at the larger man in frustration. "You call yourself a warrior and you can't even dispose of a cog without quivering over it?" Vegeta stomped on Tien's opponent's throat, killing him in the same way as the other. Tien narrowed his eyes at Vegeta in silent condemnation for only a moment before turning away.

Vegeta himself wasted no time equivocating over the ridiculous moral judgement and motioned for the rest of the group to catch up. He rifled through the uniform pockets of the dead men but found no collar remote. He peered through the round porthole windows in the set of double doors previously guarded. They led down another hallway, at the end of which lay an elevator. With the rest of the unit now regrouped behind him, he pushed open the swinging doors and examined the elevator as he got closer. Posted on the wall was a directory listing and numbering the decks of the ship.

Seventeen (17)- Flight Deck.

Vegeta tried pressing the elevator call button, on the off chance that it might work but it stayed unlit. Of course, the elevators would be deactivated under emergency protocol. He attempted to shove his gloved fingers into the seam of the doors to pry them open. He managed to part them a few inches and insert his other hand, pulling apart with all of his might. It was embarrassing how much effort it took to open the doors less than a foot without his ki. Thankfully, without Vegeta having to request help, Piccolo took hold of one side and strained to pull as Vegeta did with the other. Finally, the mechanism in the doors keeping them closed gave way and the doors slid apart to reveal the empty elevator shaft. He glanced at the directory again, which indicated they were currently on _Six (6)- Brig_.

The elevator cab sat suspended by two massive cables at the bottom of the shaft. Vegeta took a step back and threw himself into the shaft, as Bulma and some of the other more squeamish members of the group gasped. He latched onto the cabled in the center and shimmied down until he felt the roof of the cab below his feet. It was almost pitch black down there but, with his preternatural ability to see in the dark, he was able to find the hatch.

He jumped down into the brightly lit elevator below, squinting as his eyes adjusted again to the light. He ripped open the locked emergency panel to reveal a bright red button with the word SOS printed on it. The back light behind the numbered buttons came to life as he pressed the emergency override. Vegeta mashed the six button and felt the elevator shift and whir upwards before coming to a stop as the doors opened on the rest of the group.

They piled in together like sardines, all eleven bodies pressed together uncomfortably, the doors barely clearing as they shut behind them. Vegeta pushed the button for the flight deck and the elevator jerked and rose again.

"Be ready," Vegeta cautioned. "There's probably a guard on every floor."

They all visibly tensed and leveled themselves into fighting stances as the elevator slowed to a stop.

They froze as the doors opened.

Where Vegeta had expected to find one or two incompetent weaklings stood a cadre of hostile aliens lying in wait for them. They looked to be outnumbered at least three to one.

No one had time to react before searing pain ripped through their bodies, originating from their necks and traveling down each convulsing limb. Vegeta instinctively clutched at the collar around his neck, barely registering the danger of yanking it off, only concerned with the white-hot pain he was currently suffering. Before he could do any damage to it, the pain increased past any threshold he was prepared to endure. Mercifully, it didn't last long before consciousness slipped away. He barely registered the sound of Bulma's scream above the din and then nothing.

* * *

For the second time that day, Vegeta woke up with an agonizing headache on a cold, white tile floor. Again, it took several heart stopping seconds for him to remember where he was and how he had gotten there. The failed escape attempt began to filter through the pounding behind his eyes. ' _Back to square one'_ , he thought to himself indignantly as he adjusted to the overhead lighting. Once he was finally able to keep his eyes open long enough to take in his surroundings he realized he was not in the same cell he had just broken out of. This one was smaller and included a sink as well as a commode, creature comforts indicating his captor's intent for a longer stay this time.

Across the hall was another cell, a mirror image of his own. It was difficult to make out the details as the view between two force fields was hazy and cast a slight shimmer. The occupant of the cell was lying sprawled on her back, long blue hair flared out underneath her. The small gash she previously had on her forehead was larger now and leaking fresh blood down her face, matting in her hair.

"Bulma," Vegeta hummed, not yet able to bear any noise louder than a whisper. "Woman, wake up."

"Come on B! Rise and shine!" He could hear the weakling yelling from the cell to his right. Vegeta cringed and pressed the heel of his palm to his brow in an attempt to dull the renewed throbbing.

"She's not dead, is she?" Eighteen asked from farther down the hall to his left, sounding only mildly concerned.

"She's not dead," Vegeta responded out loud, more to reassure himself than the frosty cyborg. "She's been knocked out twice today. She's not built to recover from head trauma as quickly as the rest of us."

"Is that you Eighteen?" Krillin shouted from the opposite side of the hallway. "Yeah I'm here," she replied as they reassured each other of their relative health and safety.

"Tien, Chiaotzu are you guys alright?" Yamacha inquired, thankfully using his indoor voice this time. "We're okay but my head really hurts," Chiaotzu replied in his shrill pitch.

Vegeta could make out Piccolo in the cell to Bulma's right and Gohan in the one to her left. They were all accounted for except…

"Trunks!" Vegeta yelled down the hall. " _Trunks_!" he shouted again when the boy didn't answer, using the authoritative tone he only put on when the boy was in exceptionally deep shit.

"Goten?!" Gohan too began yelling for his brother, "Goten where are you?"

"TRUNKS!" Bulma shot up from her previously prone position on the floor.

"Where is he? You had him!" Vegeta hadn't meant for the exclamation to sound so accusatory.

She was panting for air, her breathing labored by obvious panic. He couldn't understand anything she was attempting to tell him through her tears, stuttering, and hyperventilation.

"Bulma," Vegeta softened his tone, attempting to project his false sense of calm onto his mate, "take a deep breath, and breath out slowly." He had to repeat himself several times before she followed his instructions, slowing her breathing and suppressing her sobs.

"They took him from me," Bulma pushed out between hiccupped breaths. "He was screaming and then they took him and Goten away." Her momentary calm was breaking, and tears were again streaming down her cheeks. "I don't remember anything after that."

Vegeta had no time to question her any further before he was interrupted by the now familiar grating sound of metal on metal. They were joined by a creature right out of one of those horror movies Bulma enjoyed so much. It was tall, unnaturally thin, with the pallor of a corpse and stringy black hair. It wore scraps of black material which hung limply off its skeletal form. Its eyes were nothing but black pits. It had no lips and its sharpened crooked teeth bent into a nauseating mockery of a smile. It floated rather than walked towards them, its toes scraping the floor. A soldier followed in behind the creature. This one was humanoid with red skin and black hair. He was hardly as grotesque as his partner but still carried an air of intimidation.

"Where is my brother?" Gohan growled through his teeth. "What did you do to him?"

The red man chuckled. "Your piglets are safe for now. If you would like them to remain that way, I suggest you nix any further escape attempts you had planned. My friend here hails from a sector of the galaxy where humanoid children are considered a delicacy. I might consider letting him have an early dinner if you give me any more trouble."

The soldier's words only stoked Bulma's roiling panic attack. She curled herself into a ball and made a futile effort at stifling her weeping.

"You know, we tried to do this the civilized way," the soldier said as he paced down the corridor, giving the occupant of each cell a once over. "We were watching and waiting for one of you to spill the information we needed," he then motioned to the surveillance bots that hung in each cell, "but you sneaky little shits were just too cunning for your own good."

"Now we're going to have to implement my friend's rather interesting skill set," he said placing his meaty red hand on his comrade's bony shoulder. "This is Zrak. He has one job around here and that is to cause pain. I hate to call it a job, really. It's more of a calling for him. He is a true artist."

The man kept pacing until he landed before Vegeta's cell. "Your highness, I've been looking forward to meeting you."

"Am I supposed to know who you are?"

"The name's Jaeko. I wouldn't expect you to know me, but your reputation precedes you. We were all very impressed when we heard that Frieza's pet monkey managed to slip his leash and kill Zarbon, Dedoria, and the entire Ginyu Force."

"… he had some help with that last one," Krillin muttered to no one in particular.

"There were even rumors that you were the one to take out Lord Frieza and King Cold, though that turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration of your abilities."

Vegeta shot the man looming over him one of his trademark condescending smirks, "Well… useless pissant whose name I don't care to remember, you seem to be a veritable font of common knowledge. What exactly are you expecting to torture out of me that you don't already know?"

"Getting right down to business. I like your attitude." The soldier reached into his pocket and produced the remote Vegeta recognized as the control to the ki dampener. He readied himself for pain, but instead he felt his muscles relax beyond his control and his feet levitate gently off the ground.

"Things are about to get rather intimate. Why don't we continue this somewhere private?"

The barrier to his cell dropped and he felt himself floating out and down the hall.

"Bring the woman. The human one."

Vegeta attempted to struggle but he had lost the ability to control his limbs. He tried to curse and threaten the man, but he was only able to manage a gurgling moan. He heard Bulma scream as the nightmarish creature approached her. She was too frightened to fight him as he raised her to her feet and gently took her arm, leading her down the hall as if he were a gentleman escorting a lady.

They were led out of the brig and down another curving hallway until they reached a non-descript door. It swished open upon their approach and closed again after they entered. The room beyond was dimly lit by a single overhead lamp. In the center were two chairs draped in chains, facing each other and bolted to the floor. Next to them was a medical tray covered in implements clearly designed for torture.

Vegeta was placed in one of the chairs. The soldier chained his arms behind him and secured his ankles. He watched as the monster smoothly placed Bulma in the seat across from him and tenderly chained her to it. Her eyes were wide and puffy, pleading with him to help her. Her terror was all over her face and seeping out of her pores. She was not prepared for what was about to happen here.

"I'm sure you know the drill, but I'll give you a refresher course," the soldier, Jaeko, directed to Vegeta. "I'll ask you a question. You'll no doubt give me some smug sarcastic answer and I'll do something horrendously painful to you. Then, I'll ask you again and, if you continuing to be an obstinate shit, _he_ will do something truly heinous to _her_ ," he said, motioning to the creature and then to Bulma.

Bulma was practicing her deep breathing, trying to keep a level head. This was really happening. They were going to be tortured and there was nothing either of them could do to get out of it. There would be no last minute acts of heroics. No super saiyan transformations to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Vegeta's resolute battle face was unreadable and gave her no comfort.

"Let's get started." Jaeko took the remote from his pocket and Vegeta was able to move again, though it didn't do him much good. The bindings held firm.

"Why did you initially come to Earth?"

Vegeta's gut reaction to the question was to spit in Jaeko's face and politely suggest he go fuck his own mother. This wasn't his first time being tortured and he had never been cracked. It didn't matter how trivial the information was. He would sooner have every one of his fingernails ripped out than give up so much as what he'd for breakfast.

But a war of wills was not an option for him this time. He had no doubt any non-cooperation on his part would be taken out on Bulma. He wasn't willing to find out what horror was in store for her. So, he mulled over the answer to the question asked.

He had come to Earth to wish for immortality, but that information might only create another despot bent on invincibility. He would not reveal anything about the dragon balls. He could safely assume that whatever tyrant had taken over Frieza's former empire was just as powerful and, likely, just as mad.

"Napa and I knew Raditz had gone there to search for his brother. When he didn't return we came to retrieve him."

"Wong answer."

Jaeko selected a scalpel from the array of sharp objects laid out before him. He used it to cut down the center of Vegeta's shirt, leaving him bare chested. Then, with precision, he pushed it into the skin of his chest, over his heart, careful not to break through to the muscle below. Vegeta refused to let out so much as a wince as his tormentor carved, creating a thin line over his breast and used the scalpel to separate skin from the tissue below. Jaeko planned on skinning Vegeta alive, one strip at a time.

"Stop! Please stop it! You don't need to do this. We'll answer your questions. Just…" Bulma's exclamation was cut off by Jaeko raking his bloody hand through her hair and yanking painfully.

"One more word out of you and I'll strip the skin off his face and wear it like a mask."

"Take your hand off of her before you lose it." Vegeta growled. It was an empty threat, considering the circumstances, but menacing enough to bring the attention back onto himself.

"I already knew the answer to that question and I wanted to see if you were ready to be honest with me. Obviously, you're not." Jaeko wiped his bloody tool on the sleeve of his uniform. "You came to Earth looking for the dragon balls."

Of course, that's what this was about. It's _always_ about those fucking, piece of shit dragon balls.

"Where is Goku?" Jaeko asked, wasting no time moving on to the next subject.

"How do you know about Goku?" Vegeta wasn't going to answer any more questions until he knew exactly how much they knew.

"I'm asking the questions and you're answering them, Prince. Where is he?" Vegeta grit his teeth and bit his tongue until he could taste blood as another sliver of skin was cut from his chest, but he gave nothing up.

"Normally I wouldn't entertain questions like this, but it seems you're hell bent on wasting my time with them." Jaeko momentarily paused as he wiped the blood trickling down Vegeta's chest. "Every single one of Frieza's ships and pods were equipped with long range surveillance equipment. Anything that happened within a hundred click radius was recorded and sent back to base, including your initial excursion to Earth, the whole business on Namek, and Frieza and Cold's ultimate demise."

"Now, I'll ask you one more time and then it'll be your mate's turn. Where. Is. Goku?"

"Dead"

"Hmm… I don't believe you. Zrak?" Bulma's body went rigid as she realized the attention had shifted to her. The creature came to stand behind her. He grazed his corpse like hands across her face tenderly, as if admiring her delicate features. Then his fingertips began to glow and disappeared into Bulma's temples. She screamed so loud that Vegeta thought her vocal cords might bleed. He looked on in stunned revulsion as the monster's hands disappeared past her blue mane and into her skull, light pouring out of her eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

"He's dead! I swear he's dead! He was killed by some cybernetic… thing. It was obscenely powerful and he sacrificed himself to destroy it." Vegeta struggled against the chains, desperate to eviscerate the worm who tortured his mate.

The answer seemed to appease Jaeko. He made a cutting motion across his neck, ordering Zrak to cease his ministrations. He reluctantly removed his finger's from Bulma's brain with a nauseating squish and licked his fingers clean. Bulma's head rolled back on her shoulder's as she gasped in relief.

"Who is the Saiyan that hacked up Frieza and Cold?"

Vegeta's eyes locked with Bulma's. He could see her fright and the lingering pain but under it he could see a familiar look. It was the same look she gave him when Trunks asked where babies came from or what his father did before coming to Earth. Lie, she silently plead with him.

"He was from the future. He came to warn us about the rise of the enemy that would ultimately kill Kakarot." This half-truth would lend credence to the rest of his story.

"Where is he now?"

"In the future, moron." Vegeta bit back a hiss as Jaeko dug a finger into the wound on his chest.

"If he exists in the future then he must have some origin in the present. Where did he come from? Did he escape the destruction of Planet Vegeta?"

Vegeta knew he had to tread carefully. This could be a very well laid trap. Did Jaeko already know of Future Trunk's parentage and was trying to catch him in another lie? He couldn't chance his captor's finding out just how powerful his young son had the potential to be, especially if Trunks was already at their mercy. He needed to take a calculated risk.

"He was a half breed, born on Earth. Another one of Kakarot's whelps. Except Kakarot is dead and now that kid doesn't exist in our reality, String Theory being what it is."

"So, the kid shows up to warn you lot of your impending doom, his father dies and he's never born? What a kick in the nuts."

Vegeta let out an imperceptible sigh of relief that Jaeko had bought the deception.

"Now, let's get down to the real reason we're here." Jaeko ran his finger along the sharp edge of the scalpel. "How do we make the dragon balls work?"

Make them work? Vegeta had seen the dragon balls used on more than one occasion and didn't recall any ritual pomp and circumstance associated with them. The balls were gathered together and the dragon appeared. No instruction necessary. What kind of answer was he looking for?

"What do you mean, make them work?"

"We gathered six out of the seven. The last one was guarded by a little Namekian on a tower. We killed him and then the balls turned to stone. How do we reactivate them?"

Vegeta began to snicker, and then laugh, and then laugh uproariously.

"You utter fuck ups! You are going to have your asses handed to you by whatever maniac you work for. There is no reactivating them. You killed the Earth's guardian meaning the dragon balls are nothing more than paperweights."

Jaeko's face turned an even deeper shade of red and his fists clenched at his side.

"You think this is funny, Prince?"

"I think it's a fucking riot!"

Jaeko put the scalpel down on the shiny metal tray and circled his two subjects.

"You've proven yourself to be untrustworthy. How do I know you're not lying to me?"

"You'll just have to take my word for it," Vegeta said through a smirk.

"You know," Jaeko said, leaning over the back of Bulma's chair, burying his head in the nape of her neck and breathing deeply, "she's a little sickly sweet for my taste but, I have to say, that ass is something remarkable. Maybe I'll take a sample."

Bulma shivered, swallowing the bile creeping up the back of her throat. The sound of twisting metal echoed through the room as Vegeta pulled against the chains binding him to the chair.

"Ask the others if you don't believe me." Vegeta grit out through clenched teeth, not caring if he was condemning the rest of the group to torture as well.

"I think I might just have to." Jaeko wiped his bloody hands off on a cloth and produced a gauze bandage with antiseptic from the medical cart.

"You're lucky The Twins want you in one piece or I would be chopping off fingers right about now." He opened the bottle of antiseptic, poured it liberally on Vegeta's wound, and slapped the bandage on top without much care. "I'm not in the habit of providing first aid to my torture subjects."

"Who are the twins?" Vegeta inquired.

"What did I tell you about asking questions?" Jaeko took the remote he had stored in his pocket and reactivated the collar, rendering Vegeta slack again. Both he and Bulma were released from their chains and returned to the brig. Vegeta dropped to the floor ungracefully when he was shoved back into his cell and the collar abruptly deactivated.

Jaeko resumed his stalking up and down the corridor. "I'm sure it will come as no surprise to all of you that Vegeta is a lying sack of shit and I trust nothing that comes out of his mouth. That means we're all going to get some personal time together to get to know each other."

"Any volunteers to go next?" The room remained silent. Jaeko turned around in a slow circle before choosing his next victim.

"You two," he said, pointing to Tien and Chiaotzu. The doll prince immediately began shaking and crying in protest as Zrak advanced on him and Tien was incapacitated. There were no useless attempts at dissent by any of the others as the two were dragged out the door.

"What do they want?" Piccolo directed to Vegeta.

"The dragon balls."

"What do they want them for?" Gohan asked.

"I don't know but it doesn't matter now. They killed Dende. No one's getting their wish."

Both Piccolo and Gohan's posture slumped and their faces fell. The room went silent again as they all stewed in the reality that they would not wake from this particular nightmare. There was no magic, no all powerful band aid to set everything right again. Even if they managed to beat the villains, the damage done would stay done.

They sat in silence for hours as, one by one, they were led out to be questioned. Each bruised and bloodied body was sent back more damaged than the last. Gohan, the last to be tortured, returned barely conscious and drenched in blood. If it wasn't for his Saiyan physiology, he would have been dead.

When Jaeko finally returned to the brig, his jaunty bravado was gone and replaced by roiling, barely contained rage.

"I suggest that you all start praying to whatever god you have left. When we get back to New Gemini, you'll be meeting The Twins… and then you'll know what real suffering looks like."

Their tormentors took their leave and the room was plunged into near total darkness, the only light emanating from the shimmer of the cell barriers, now made visible in the black. No one spoke. It didn't take long until they each yielded to their utter exhaustion.

All except Vegeta who remained awake, aware, and totally vigilant as he sat on the floor, his back resting on the wall. He would never understand how a group of warriors could allow themselves to be vulnerable in sleep while their enemy stalked the halls just outside. Though, considering who he was dealing with, he supposed it shouldn't surprise him at all. This lot would welcome a rabid dog into their midst and continue to trust it until it mauled them all to death. That he was here among them was a testament to their utterly senseless ignorance. In fact, most of the people in the room were enemies at one point or another and yet they still slept soundly next to each other. None of them knew what it was to be truly at the mercy of an enemy. None of them could fathom being utterly helpless and hopeless under the boot of someone who valued the hurt even more than the kill.

They were all in for a rude awakening and, as much as he resented each and every one of them, he wished he could spare them from it. Not out of any sentimentality for Earth's protectors, but because the same blind naiveté existed in his mate and his son. It was what made Trunks look at him as if he were some indestructible hero, a god among men. It was what enabled Bulma to go toe to toe with him when they first met, as if she were completely unaware he could reduce her to ash and bone on a whim. It was the indefinable thing that opened her to him, that pulled him into her home, into her bed, into her life. And if they were going to survive this, that beautiful intangible innocence would have to be destroyed. He would have to kill it.

"Vegeta, are you awake?" he heard the familiar questioning whisper from across the hall. He let himself slip for just a moment, to savor the sound of her voice and imagine he was at home in bed with her, a place he wondered if he would ever see again.

"I'm awake." He pulled himself closer to the barrier so he could see her. She lay on her side, her arm pillowing her head. He lay down before her in the same position still holding on to the wisps of his passing fantasy.

"I'm so scared."

"I'm here."

"They want Trunks. I don't know why or for what, but I could feel it when that thing was in my brain. I could hear him calling for me, but it was like I was in a dark room and I couldn't find the exit."

"We'll get him back. I promise." And Vegeta meant it. He meant it more than any of the million other broken promises he had ever made to her. He would endure whatever tortures were ahead of him, bend his pride to breaking, kill, maim, die if it meant saving his son from one day of the nearly thirty years he endured as a slave in the Imperial Army. There was no doubt in his mind what was in store for Trunks if he didn't find a way to protect him.

"Where is he Vegeta? What do they want with him? He's just a little boy."

He should tell her every possible use for a small boy in the inner workings of a machine like the PTO. He should strip every last shred of hope from her in order to make her hard enough to withstand the trials to come. But he couldn't. Not yet. There was time enough to watch her die inside. It didn't have to happen tonight.

"We'll find him. Get some sleep."

"Will you stay awake, just in case they come back?"

"Of course."

"I love you," she breathed so low he barely heard her. He wished he could touch her right now and assure her the only way he knew how that he returned her foolish sentiment. He wanted now more than any other time he'd heard those words to return them, but the time for that had come and gone. He'd squandered what small measure of peace fate had granted him.

"I know."

He watched her as her eyes fluttered closed, as she curled into herself for warmth, listened as her breathing slowed and deepened. His eyes became heavy as he matched the rhythmic pattern of her breaths but refused to allow himself the rest he craved. She didn't sleep for long.

BOOM

An ear splitting blast crashed through them, followed by gut churning reverberations that shook the floor beneath their feet. Each of the warriors woke and readied themselves for battle in seconds.

"What the hell was that?" several of them belted out, looking around as if to find the source of the disturbance in the room with them.

There was no mistaking what it was. Vegeta knew the sound of a planet exploding into the vacuum of space when he heard it, and he'd heard it hundreds of times.

"Earth."

* * *

A/N: This chapter was originally two separate chapters but I decided to combine them because I felt like it was taking too long to get to the meat of the story. I've also gone back and revised Chapter 1 after catching some errors and general syntax that bothered me. No plot points have been changed but I feel like it reads much smoother now. From this point on, I will do a better job a rereading and editing before posting. As always, PLEASE leave a comment. Writing is so much easier when I have praise and constructive criticism to motivate me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Earth. Bulma knew the weight of that declaration. It was gone. Not purged of life or violated for its resources. Just gone. Obliterated. The place where her life took place no longer existed. Her eyes were still trained on Vegeta, hoping for some sign that she was wrong, that she'd misinterpreted him. But he gave her nothing, not even eye contact.

"Earth? What do you mean Earth?" Krillin's voice trembled from down the hall.

"Are you dense? I mean that was the sound of the Earth exploding," Vegeta barked.

"It can't be! That's not it! You don't know that!" Gohan was shaking and pounding on the barrier field of his cell.

"I've blown up a few planets in my day. I know it when it happens."

"You said they would purge the planet and sell it! You never said they would blow it up!" Eighteen cried.

"Maybe it wasn't worth the hassle. It's not like they would get much for it. Who's going to pay for some backwater shithole in the middle of nowhere?"

"What kind of sociopathic monster are you?" Yamcha derided him from the next cell. "Our home and everyone on it was just blown to pieces and you think this is some kind of joke."

"Let's get something straight," Vegeta barked back, "Earth was your home, not mine. My planet was destroyed decades ago. If you expect me to cry and hold your hand, you're in for a let down. You're not special. Planets are destroyed ever day in this gods forsaken universe. So, buck the fuck up and pull yourself together! In case you haven't noticed, we're still in deep shit here!"

Bulma winced and couldn't help but feel like his tirade was directed at her. She thought, maybe, he'd come to consider her humble little 'mudball' as his home too. They'd shared a life there, a family there, but the loss didn't seem to affect him for even a second. Sometimes Bulma wondered if her entire relationship with Vegeta existed only in her own mind. She would tell herself that he really did care for her and their son but wasn't able to express himself in words. She would look for the longing looks, the quiet moments, the tender touches as evidence of his love for them. But there were times, times like the present moment, that she feared it was all just her own imagination filling in the gaps between what she needed from him and what he was capable of giving her. Just now, before the explosion, she thought she had seen something in him. He was so willing to comfort her but then had turned on her so quickly. He would be no comfort to her now.

"What are we going to do?" Bulma asked Vegeta pointedly.

"Nothing," Piccolo answered instead. "They have Goten and Trunks. We can't risk another escape attempt until we get them back."

"What's the point of escaping if there's nowhere to escape to?" Tien added dejectedly.

There was no more discussion after that. No one wanted to think or talk about what had just occurred. They settled back into their cells, each one of them alone despite the eight other bodies in the room. No one slept.

After several hours, they felt the shudder of engines coming to life and the odd sensation of falling while sitting still that Bulma knew to accompany faster than light space travel. They remained that way in the dark for some time until another nameless guard turned the lights back on and brought them food. It went on like that for days. They would sit in their cells, mostly keeping to themselves until the silence became too much and someone would tell a joke or suggest some hokey party game to keep them all sane. The lights would go off again and they'd fall into fitful restless sleep until 'morning' when they were fed again. By the fifth day, Bulma began to wonder if this was all there was, if they would just be kept in these cells until they died or went mad. It wasn't until the eighth day that their tenuous routine was disturbed.

"Look alive, maggots!" Jaeko entered the brig followed by a group of armored soldiers. He produced the collar remote from his person and the occupants of the cells came to attention, knowing to expect something dreadful to follow.

"I really don't want to have to use this. I feel like we've managed to build a report over the last few days," he said, slipping the devise back into his pocket. "You're going to be shackled. You can either stand still and let these fine gentlemen do their jobs, or you can fight and I can reintroduce you to the shock function on your collars. Your choice."

One by one, each prisoner was removed from their cell and manacled at the wrists and ankles. Thick metal chains bound their hands together and around their waist, another binding their feet with just enough slack to allow slow hobbled steps.

No one protested as they were chained and herded into a single file line, flanked on each side by soldiers. The heavy steel door was pried open and they were marched down the hallway, taking the same rout as their aborted escape attempt. The chains around their ankles clanked with each shuffling step as they advanced towards the now functioning elevator.

"Take them up one at a time," Jaeko instructed his men, shoving Bulma in first, accompanied by a greasy, pustuled creature. Each of its four eyes perused her up and down as he hit the button for the flight deck. Bulma crowded herself into the corner farthest from her escort, thanking her lucky stars the ride only lasted a few seconds.

When the doors opened at their destination, her jaw went slack. It was teaming with alien life and technology. She hadn't had the chance to take it all in the last time, considering the paralyzing fear and head trauma of her previous visit. She was taken by the arm and led through the buzzing deck. She attempted to slow the brisk pace and crane her neck to watch as mechanics worked on vessels she couldn't have even conceived of. Dende, what she wouldn't give to just dive in with a wrench and… but then she remembered. This wasn't one of her geeky engineering fantasies, this was a nightmare. She had no right to be giddy over alien technology when these aliens had destroyed her planet and stolen her son from her.

She picked up her pace and kept her head down until they reached a boxy looking ship. She was hauled up the gangway and deposited into a seat facing the cockpit. The soldier leaned in unnecessarily close as he strapped her in tightly, causing Bulma to wrinkle her nose in disgust.

She was soon joined by the rest of the gang as they were each plopped into a seat and strapped in. The interior of the transport ship was similar to that of a small passenger plane, with seats lining the sides and a porthole window at every row. Once they were all present and accounted for, the ship lifted to a hover and taxied towards the runway. A crackly voice sounded over an intercom system warning them to prepare for departure. They felt the press of force against their chests signifying take off and were flung out into the blackness of space. It didn't take long to reach cruising speed and eventually the g force relented.

"So, any guesses on where they're taking us?" Yamcha asked.

"Jaeko said something about Gemini. It must be a planet." Bulma speculated.

"What happens when we land? Are they going to kill us?" Krillin said nervously.

"What would be the point of keeping us captive and transporting us all this way just to kill us?" Piccolo asked. "We clearly serve some purpose to them."

"Who are the twins? He kept mentioning the twins," Tien wondered aloud.

"Jaeko sounded scared of them," Chiaotzu noted timidly.

Vegeta scoffed. "Jaeko is pathetic. It wouldn't take much to scare him. If we weren't neutered right now with these fucking collars he would be dead already. Whoever they are, they can't be that tough if they're relying on technology to keep us in line."

Bulma took personal offense to Vegeta's off handed dismissal of 'mere technology'. She was tempted to remind him that, in the battle between brains and brawn, brains currently had him by the shorthairs. But then again, genius scientist or not, she was just as screwed as the rest of them at the moment. Maybe now wasn't the time for one of their long-winded debates on the value of intelligence over physical strength.

"Holy shit! Look at that," Eighteen exclaimed pointing out the window next to her.

They pressed their faces to the windows, some leaning against their seatbelts to get a better look out the other side. It was a planet, but nothing like they had ever seen before. It was enormous. The size of one of the gas giants of their own solar system but seemingly solid. The entire globe was alive with blinking lights of civilization. There was not a single square inch of green, blue, or brown. Nothing to denote that any spec of the natural world existed on the surface.

A ping sounded over the intercom followed by a robotic prerecorded female voice.

"Welcome to New Gemini, capital planet of the Geminon Empire and headquarters of the Planet Trade Organization. Current population estimated at four hundred billion, three hundred eighty six million, two…"

"Four hundred billion! That's impossible!" Bulma exclaimed incredulously. "There is no way any planet, even one that size, could sustain that population."

"Sure it can," Vegeta assured her. "As long as you're not expecting luxuries like potable water and basic sanitation."

She pressed her forehead to the glass as they came closer to the colossus. She could see man-made structures jutting past the clouds, almost breaching the atmosphere. "People have to be living on top of each other."

"Why do you think the planet trade is so profitable?" Vegeta posited rhetorically. "For every habitable planet purged there are two more bursting at the seams."

The crackling voice came over the intercom again advising of their final decent. The ship began to vibrate and licks of blue flames could be seen out of the windows. Each passenger clung to the armrests of their seats, praying the rickety little transport ship wouldn't disintegrate as it punched through the atmosphere. Slowly the vibrations died to nothing and the ship stabilized. When they finally dropped below the wispy cloud cover, another collective gasp reverberated through the cabin. The surface of the planet was nothing like the view from space. It was ugly. The air itself looked grey and dingy. The lights that twinkled from far away were just garish up close. The sky had been dark as they descended but the smog and light pollution made it difficult to tell what time of day it was. The ship weaved between literal skyscrapers, massive buildings that seemed to sway slightly in the wake of the ship and Bulma marveled at the engineering behind such structures.

Soon they approached and began to circle a particularly impressive edifice. It resembled a medieval castle but was lit in an eerie florescent blue, lending a hard edge of modernity to the otherwise anachronistic architecture. It sat in the middle of a vast sprawling compound of smaller outer buildings and manicured purple lawns, the only visible slice of open space in a sea of urban sprawl. The ship pulled into a hanger and shuddered as it dropped gracelessly onto a landing pad. Soldiers immediately surrounded the ship and boarded to release them from their seatbelts. Jaeko waited on the tarmac, barking orders to disembark in a single file line.

"Welcome to New Gemini," he greeted disingenuously. "I'm sure you bumpkins must be dumbstruck at seeing a city planet for the first time. But try to contain yourselves. There will be plenty of time for sightseeing after you've been processed… assuming you survive that long."

They were led out of the hanger into a nearby outbuilding and, from there, to a bright, white, sterile looking room. It smelled like a combination of disinfectant and bodily fluids. Large liquid filled domes lined the walls, some with naked bodies floating in them. Vegeta recognized them as regeneration tanks but sleeker and more compact than anything he was used to. A small lizard creature mulled about dressed in a lab coat and surgical face mask. It came to stand at attention when the group entered and then bustled around to gather supplies.

"I have good news!" Jaeko announced. "We'll finally be removing those bulky fossils from around your necks and equipping you with some state of the art technology." Vegeta and several of the others eyed him distrustfully, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Royalty first." Jaeko removed Vegeta's chains and pulled up a stool, waiting for him to take a seat.

"What is this?"

"You're going to have your scouters installed."

"I don't see any scouters."

The little lizard came into view, brandishing a dangerously long and sharp looking instrument.

"We've made some technological advancements since you started living off the grid." Jaeko picked up a small plastic square from a tray of supplies and held it between his thumb and forefinger. It looked suspiciously similar to the microchips Bulma used in her various electronic components. He looked to the reptile creature and it clutched the devise in its hands just a little tighter.

Vegeta had stayed calm and kept it together up to this point. He'd allowed his own cooler head to prevail and resisted fighting back. He waited for his moment to strike but that moment hadn't come, and he suspected this might be the point of no return. He was not going to sit by and let them microchip him like the family pet. The collar he had tolerated because he knew, sooner or later, he would get it off. But he had no doubt, once that thing was inside his body, there would be no getting it out again. This could very well be their last chance to save themselves.

Vegeta shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and Jaeko perked up. He bent his knees slightly, his arms tensing at his side.

"Don't do it, Prince."

In less than a second Vegeta was on their captor. Fists connecting with face, knee connecting with ribs, foot connecting with fleshy belly. Jaeko doubled over as the breath was forced out of his lungs. He was on the floor before he could recover, gold tipped boots kicking him in the teeth.

The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

The fleet of soldiers that escorted them from the hanger stormed through the med bay doors. Vegeta managed to throw off the first wave. It took nine of them but eventually, he was pinned to the floor on his stomach. He continued to struggle from underneath the dog pile. He made vain attempt after vain attempt to summon his ki from under the wet blanket of the dampener around his neck. It wasn't until his chest began to burn from lack of oxygen and darkness crept into his peripheral vision that he let himself go limp. He nearly gagged with impotent rage as he felt the collar activate and all of his muscles paralyze. By this time Jaeko had stumbled to his feet and motioned to his men to lift Vegeta off the floor.

"That wasn't one of your brightest ideas," Jaeko spat at him, along with a mouthful of blood. He circled around him and kicked out the back of Vegeta's knees, forcing him to kneel. "We usually use anesthetic for this procedure, but you've just forfeited the privilege."

The medic came running along with the frightening looking tool. A microchip was loaded into the end of it. Jaeko grabbed Vegeta by the hair a forced his head down, chin to chest. He could feel the point of the instrument pressing into the base of his skull. His breath came in jagged heaves.

"Are you scared?" Jaeko snickered. "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

The medic's hand was shaking causing the pointed end to dig into his scalp painfully. "We really shouldn't do this without anesthetic. He could go into shock."

"Just pull the damn trigger already."

"I'll count to three."

One… two…

There was a hum, the smell of burnt flesh and hair, a crack as a hole was punched into his skull, and then pain. There was metal burrowing into his brain. He should be dead, but he could feel electric shocks emanating from the very center of his skull and claws gripping into grey matter. And then it just stopped. He hadn't passed out. He still had command of all his senses, but the pain was gone. Not even a dull ache was left. He lifted his hand to the back of his head to feel for damage but there was no wound or wet slick of blood. Just a tiny patch of bald skin where he had been penetrated.

"See, no need to get hysterical." Jaeko said as two soldiers lifted him back to his feet. "Take it for a spin. You've used a scouter before. Concentrate on my power level."

Vegeta was reluctant to do anything that would aggravate or activate the chip now lodged in his brain but, by the power of suggestion, he did focus on feeling out Jaeko's energy. As if he was looking through a scouter screen rather than his own retinas, whirring numbers and letters began to appear in the man's general vicinity indicating a power level. The number seemed to be substantially lower than the potential well of energy he felt restrained in him. He turned is eyes to his compatriots, focusing on their individual ki signatures. Again, the numbers that appeared were far lower than he knew they should be. All except for Bulma, whose infinitesimal power level hovered right in line with his senses.

"Still relying on arbitrary power scaling? This thing is just as useless as the old scouters."

"I heard you developed some kind of voodoo sixth sense for power levels," Jaeko said, waving his fingers in the air to demonstrate just how seriously he took the preternatural ability. "But energy readings are just one function."

The medic approached Vegeta with a smaller, less deadly looking tool, and lifted off the ground to hover next to him. "I need to remove your collar."

He raised his chin and allowed the creature to work. There was a click and the metal band sprang open. The relief he felt was instantaneous and he couldn't stop himself from rubbing the raw and inflamed skin that had chaffed under the devise for days.

"Why don't you try powering up?" Jaeko taunted.

Vegeta was sorely tempted but thought better of it. He could still feel the sluggish weight constricting around his ki, despite the collar being removed. He knew the consequences of testing his power would be unpleasant.

"I'll pass on the skull splitting headache if it's all the same to you."

"Smart man. You're finally catching on."

"Who's next?" Jaekos's eyes roamed the room for his next victim. "How about you, short stack? Take a seat," he said to Krillin, motioning to the stool behind him.

"No," Eighteen said, pushing her husband behind her defensively. "I'll do it."

"No, you won't! I can handle this!" Krillin pushed past his wife, taking a protective stance in front of her.

"Let me be perfectly clear. You're all getting chipped today so there's no need for the displays of chivalry," Jaeko directed to Krillin. "Though I feel like nature has emasculated you enough, so I won't add insult to injury by letting a woman come to your rescue."

Krillin scowled but took the seat without complaint. The medic filled a syringe and injected it into Krillin's bald scalp, presumably administering the anesthetic Vegeta was denied, then sterilized the instrument and loaded another chip into it.

"Do you want a three count?" the medic asked sympathetically.

"No just do it."

The instrument was placed at the base of Krillin's skull and discharged a muted cracking sound, causing them all to jump. It was done in a fraction of a second and Vegeta felt foolish for making such a scene about it earlier.

One by one they were all chipped. No one was reckless enough to try and replicate Vegeta's futile attempt at resistance. When it was Bulma's turn, she nervously sat and pulled her long blue hair off of her neck. She looked to Vegeta for some encouragement, but he only looked on with his arms crossed.

When they had all recovered from the simple but terrifying procedure, Jaeko ordered them to return to their single file formation.

"Form ranks. I won't be going easy on any of you now that you've been processed. I'm your commanding officer and I don't make a habit of repeating orders."

"What… commanding officer?" Gohan stuttered.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Jaeko cocked his head. "You're now property of the PTO, kid. You've been conscripted into the Geminon Imperial Army."

Vegeta heard a few gasps from the others and rolled his eyes at their failure to see this coming. What other purpose was there for keeping them alive? He'd anticipated it from the moment he watched that alien ship break through Earth's atmosphere. If he was honest with himself, he'd known even before that. Part of him never stopped being a soldier. Never stopped waiting for the day he would be dragged back into ranks. Fuck, it had been nearly ten years since he'd defected and here he was, still wearing the same blue and white uniform. Earth, Kakarot, Namek, the Androids, Cell, Bulma, Trunks… peace. It had just been one long shore leave.

It was clear that the confusion and desperation among the group was reaching a boiling point and Jaeko finally resigned himself to providing some explanations.

"Those chips in your brains connect you to the PTO network. Every soldier in this army from the lowliest private to the highest ranked general has one. That means your power is no longer your own, it belongs to the Empire. You are tools to be used for the furtherance of that Empire's goals. If you are still harboring any delusions that you are going to escape or fight your way out, I suggest you divest yourselves of them now."

They all remained silent for a moment but, to everyone's surprise, Piccolo was the first to break ranks. He stepped up to Jaeko, close enough that he was inches from the man's face, using his superior height and looking down his nose at his supposed commanding officer.

"Fuck the PTO and fuck your empire. I don't take orders from you or anyone else."

Jaeko smiled cruelly and chuckled at the green man. "I want you to hit me right here," he said, pointed to his left cheek. "I'll give you one free shot, won't even fight back."

Piccolo took a moment to process the bewildering request. He'd expected a blow or some kind of electrical zap to the brain, not an invitation to punch the man in the face. "And what will happen if I do?"

"Why don't you do it and find out."

Piccolo considered it for a moment before rearing back his fist and socking Jaeko squarely in the jaw, aggravating the bruise already forming from Vegeta's previous attack. There was a cracking noise and the sound of flesh meeting flesh. Jaeko staggered back but righted himself again, wiping at the blood pooling from his split lip.

"Do you know what you've just done?"

"I believe I just wiped that smarmy, shit eating grin off your face."

"You've struck a superior officer. There are consequences for that."

"Are there really? What are you going to do about it? Fry my brain with your ridiculous little microchip? Peel my skin off? Do your worst. I still won't take orders from you."

"I believe you." Jaeko was still smiling, his teeth stained red with his own blood. "So, you're off the hook."

Piccolo stayed ready for an attack, not believing for a second there would be no retaliation. A faint glow formed behind one of Jaeko's eyes and small characters reflected in his cornea. He focused his attention on Gohan, staring him down intensely. Piccolo noticed and followed his gaze. Gohan's eyes were wide and his jaw clenched tight. He stood frozen in position not making a sound. Then a small stream of blood came trickling out of his nose. It was clear he was in excruciating pain, but there was no noise or movement.

"I don't need to punish you when I can punish him. It's so much more effective," Jaeko spoke, never breaking eye contact with Gohan.

Piccolo grabbed Jaeko by the hair and hooked him in the face again, harder than the last time, but it had no effect. Gohan was trembling by this point and blood was now flowing from his nose in thick ribbons. Jaeko recovered quickly and continued his silent assault on the boy.

"If you say you're sorry, I'll stop. But you better hurry. It looks like the kid's head might explode any second now."

Piccolo didn't hesitate. He already had Gohan by the shoulders, attempting to rouse him from whatever trance he was in. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry gods damnit! Just stop!"

Immediately Gohan let out an ear-piercing shriek and clutched his head in his hands. Piccolo caught him before he could collapse and used his cape to wipe the blood from his face. The rest of them just stared in horror.

"You're not the first soldiers to be sucked into the PTO against your will," Jaeko said, now directing his words to the rest of the group. "There are very few men serving in this army that joined of their own volition. It's been that way since Frieza's time. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Frieza made a lot of mistakes during his reign. If there was one thing he hated, it was weakness. Physical, mental, emotional, it was all the same to him and he made it a priority to beat it out of his men at every opportunity. The Twins have a different outlook. They not only tolerate weakness, they encourage it. Because weakness, as I've just demonstrated to you, is a very effective means of control and control is the cornerstone of a thriving empire."

Jaeko stared down the line to ensure his message was being received.

"You all have weaknesses. For Piccolo, it's his fondness for that little half Saiyan mongrel. If you refuse to follow orders, if you are disrespectful, or insubordinate, your weaknesses will be exploited. Consequences may be handed down to you or they might be visited on someone you care about. If you value each other's lives, you will fall in line."

They all unconsciously moved in closer to one another. There was silent consensus. None of them were cowards, but none were willing to have the other's blood on their hands. The opportunity for resistance may come, but it wasn't today. Today they had been defeated.

"I've demonstrated on Gohan one of the functions of the scouter chips you've been equipped with. The co regents, myself and the other generals have the authority to use that particular function on anyone and at any time we deem necessary. The longer it's sustained, the more permanent the damage. It probably won't kill you, but it may leave you a drooling invalid. The chip also emits a locator signal and will remotely activate the same function should you go AWOL. Trust me when I say that, if you're considering defecting, you ought to kill yourself instead. You'll be much better off."

Once Jaeko was satisfied that he had sufficiently broken their will, his stance and his tone softened just a bit.

"There are many far more pleasant functions of the chip that you will be instructed on during your training over the next few weeks. In time, you may even come to appreciate it. If you keep your heads down and follow orders you might live long enough to adjust to the way things are now… life will go on."

"I am not going to chain you up again and I have far better things for my men to do than babysit you. I expect that I have made myself clear and that you're all intelligent enough to not test me again."

Jaeko dismissed the uniformed soldiers that remained in the med bay and waited for them to exit before he continued. The semi congenial attitude he had adopted moments before disappeared and instead he took on an uncharacteristically somber tone.

"We are going to the throne room and you are going to be presented to Kali, one of The Twins. She and her brother, Mal, are co-regents of the Geminon Empire. They've spent the years since the fall of the Cold Empire consolidating command of the major galaxies and are, in every sense of the word, the most powerful beings in the known universe. When she looks at you, you will bow. You will under no circumstances show your back to her. You will not speak unless spoken to. You will not make eye contact. If you break one of these rules, if you give off attitude, or if she simply doesn't like your face, she will eviscerate you."

Jaeko's speech and the obvious fear rolling off of him at the mere mention of the women they were about to meet was enough to convince the group they should be fearful too. He gave them a few moments to collect themselves before ordering them to move out.

This time, they didn't need to be led to their next destination. They knew exactly where they were going. Vegeta could see the layout of the entire compound in his mind's eye. It had taken him months to memorize Capsule Corps massive floor plan, but he knew this structure like he had lived in it for years. It was obviously some function of the chip in his brain and it was wholly unsettling.

As they entered the castle and came closer to the throne room, the décor became more opulent. Vegeta noted the contrast to the austere matte whitewash the Colds seemed so fond of. Everything here was dark and rich but with a modern sharpness that belayed the extravagance. There were classical sculptures of nude humanoid and alien forms that could have been mistaken for a work of Michelangelo, were they not made of space age metal. Tapestries lined the walls, intricately woven from glossy latex thread. They came to the enormous black lacquered doors of the throne room and Jaeko took in a deep breath, steeling himself for what lay beyond.

When the doors opened Vegeta was smacked in the face with a power the likes of which he had never imagined possible. He should have been able to sense it from orbit but somehow it had been contained within four walls. He wondered to himself, had he known this was the power they were facing all along, would he have surrendered from the beginning? It took significant effort to put one foot in front of the other to cross the threshold of the throne room and bend onto one knee. He could smell the nauseating stench of fear emanating from the warriors around him as they followed suit. They could feel it too. This was nothing like what they had faced before. Frieza, the androids, even Cell would have been swallowed whole by this dark, all consuming power.

Vegeta took in the being before him and marveled at how such immense energy could be contained in a mortal body, let alone one that looked so frail. She stood on a dais between two menacingly large thrones. She was tall but thin. Her limbs looked soft and spindly but he imagined that one punch from her could be enough to end him. Her features were patrician. She looked the part of an empress with her pale skin, aquiline nose, wide set almond eyes, and pillowed lips. Unlike some women of physical might, she seemed to revel in her femininity. Her thick white blonde hair fell to her shoulders. Her eyes were painted with coal and her lips stained dark red. Her slender frame was draped in red silk, leaving one shoulder bare. She wore no crown or jewels signifying her station, her mere presence was enough to inspire awe.

She looked on them and they each averted their eyes. Vegeta braced himself for the sound of her voice. Would it be thunderous and booming or deceptively soft as her appearance? It didn't matter. Whatever fresh hell was about to escape her lips would spell the ruination of them all.

"Yaaas," she squealed, clapping her hands and bouncing on her toes in delight. "Fresh meat!"

* * *

A/N: This chapter was not fun to write. Lots of exposition and very little plot or character development. I hope it was less boring to read but the next chapter will be much more interesting. Please leave a review and subscribe to be notified when I update or, better yet, bookmark me to stay in loop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Damn. There's some prime beefcake in this lineup." Whatever Vegeta thought would be her first words to them, those were not it.

"If I had known Earth men were so fine, I might not have turned your planet into space dandruff."

The earthlings cringed at the flippant reference to the extermination of their race but could make no retort.

"I'm Kali but you can call me Your Majesty, Your Eminence, Your Most Beautiful Radiant One… or just Lady Kali if your boring."

She stepped down off of the dais, reaching a hand out to one of the burley guards who flanked her, carefully placing one heeled foot on each step.

"Just in case General Jaeko hasn't filled you in yet, my brother and I are the big bosses around here," she smiled, weaving her way through the line of prostrated warriors. "Mal couldn't be here to meet you in person. He's busy tinkering with his gadgets. To be honest, he's kind of an agoraphobic weirdo so you won't see much of him."

"Stand," she ordered absently and they obeyed without hesitation. She looked them over, taking her time to eye each one from head to toe.

"I have to admit, I was kind of peeved when I found out our dragon ball hunt had been canceled, but at least the trip wasn't a total loss. I heard a few of you are like, wicked strong. At least compared to the rest of the pissants that work for me," she looked scathingly to the guards that flanked her throne. "You're going to make exceptional additions to my purge squads."

"No."

Every eye in the room turned to the source of the trembling voice.

"What was that?" Kali asked, as if to verify that, yes, she had in fact just been contradicted.

"No," Gohan repeated, his voice cracking. "We won't, we can't kill people. I know we don't have a choice about being soldiers. We'll work for you. But… we can't purge planets."

"What's your name kid?" Kali sauntered up to him and Gohan kept his eyes on the floor.

"Gohan."

"Gohan, do you know how long it's been since someone said no to me?" she asked, a small smile lighting up her face. "Honestly, it's kind of refreshing." Gohan straightened his posture but still avoided her eyes.

"I'm impressed. Standing up to someone like me takes guts," she said earnestly, placing a red tipped finger under the boy's chin and raising his face to hers. "It kind of makes me want to spill them on the floor and play with them."

Gohan audibly gulped and squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for her to make good on her gruesome proposal. Instead, she dropped his chin and turned her eyes to the back of the room.

"Jaeko, is it really too much to expect for you to break in new soldiers before you send them to me? Honestly, what other parts of your job should I be doing for you?"

The color immediately drained from Jaeko's face leaving him a pastel shade of pink. "Your Majesty, I beg your forgiveness. These soldiers have been particularly difficult."

"Well duh. Your face looks like you shoved it in a meat grinder." The empress seemed amused by the observation. "You've always been such a softy with new recruits. If they're too much for you to handle, maybe I should thin the heard a little bit."

"That won't be necessary, Lady Kali. I assure you, I will have them ready for duty in a few weeks time. They will be valuable additions to the Empire."

"What about these two?" Kali pointed to Bulma and Chiaotzu. Both Tien and Vegeta visibly tensed and held their breath as the empress' attention turned to the weakest members of their group.

"You, little guy. Aren't you just the cutest… creepiest little thing I ever did see," she ambled up to Chiaotzu and crouched down to his level. "Why shouldn't I kill you. Sell me on it."

"I… I… I'm a student of the Crane School of martial arts. I can fight."

Kali snorted and patted his head condescendingly. "You might have been able to hold your own, out in butt fuck nowhere, but here," she motioned to the empty space around her, "you wouldn't last five minutes. So, try again. Why do you deserve to live?"

"I have psychic abilities. I can move things with my mind. I can influence people. I can… hurt them if I have to."

"Interesting," she raised herself back up to standing and turned to Jaeko. "I might be able to use him as an interrogator. Maybe we can pair him with that Guaiwu you picked up last month. What's his name again?"

"Zrak, My Lady."

"That's right. Zrak. You met him, right?" she asked the group collectively. "He doesn't talk much but he's a hoot at parties. That fingers in the brain thing cracks me up every time." When she was done chuckling to herself, Kali's attention turned to Bulma.

"How about you, princess?" she said, moving to stand toe to toe with the other woman.

Bulma responded confidently while still keeping her head bowed. "I'm a scientist. I am… was well known on Earth. I graduated with duel doctorates before my sixteenth birthday. My family owned a multi-billion zeni corporation that manufactured capsules. They can store massive amounts of cargo in containers that fit into the palm of your hand."

"Boring. Mal had that figured out years ago."

Shit. She'd thought capsule science would be her trump card. Molecular compression was ground breaking on Earth but it made sense it would be old hat to a civilization so technically advanced.

"I know machines. I can build anything, fix anything..."

"I have enough mechanics," Kali said, examining her nails, obviously unimpressed with Bulma's skill set.

"… I'm good with computers," she was grasping at straws here. She'd never had to prove to anyone that she was smart. She was used to people falling over themselves to tell her how intelligent and talented she was.

She glanced over at Vegeta and saw that his face was beet red and the vein on his forehead was pulsing.

"Anything else?"

Bulma started to sweat. What else did she have? She was a genius, that was her shtick. Except now she was starting to think maybe she wasn't as brilliant as she'd always thought. She had been a big fish in a small pond but she knew nothing of the awe inspiring alien technology she'd seen in the last few days. What could she possibly offer to keep herself alive? But she had to live. She couldn't die now, not when Trunks was still counting on her.

"My son," she murmured, finally raising her head to the god like woman before her. "He was taken from me on the ship. He needs me. Please, I'll do anything you ask. Just…"

"Shh shh shh. Don't worry momma bear. The cubs are safe… for now," Kali said soothingly as she stroked Bulma's hair. "We have big plans for them."

Bulma didn't know whether to let out a sigh of relief at Kali's assurance or double over and vomit at her feet.

"But that still doesn't answer the question of what I should do with you," Kali set one manicured hand gently on Bulma's clavicle. She applied no pressure but all she had to do was tighten her fingers and Bulma's neck would snap like dry kindling.

"If I may, Your Majesty," Jaeko interjected. "This one was able to bring down the barrier shield to the brig's holding cell from the inside. If she is capable of that, I have no doubt the science division could find a use for her."

Kali seemed to mull the idea over for a moment before releasing Bulma. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. Just make sure she doesn't get into any more shenanigans."

"Of course, Lady Kali. I'm sure she will behave herself going forward." Jaeko narrowed his eyes at Bulma in silent warning of what was in store for her should she make him into a liar.

Vegeta let himself breath once it was clear Bulma's head was off the chopping block. His heartbeat had almost settled back into his chest after pounding out of control in his throat when the woman turned to him.

"So this is the Prince of all Saiyans, huh. Not quite as imposing as I thought you'd be."

He knew what she was doing. She was testing him. Pressing to see how far she would have to go to get a reaction, an excuse to divvy out 'punishment'. He'd played this game with Frieza and, after twenty-five years serving that putrid purple fuck, he was a master. If she thought petty cracks about his height were enough to get a rise out of him, she would be disappointed.

"How many Saiyans is _all_ exactly?" she taunted. "Not counting halvsies."

"One." He looked her square in her steely grey eyes, refusing to be the first to blink.

"What a shame. Frieza always was such a hot head. Wiping out the Saiyans was not one of his better decisions."

"And just what is your relationship to Frieza?"

Kali's eyes widened and her neck tilted in such a way that Vegeta could see the gears turning in her head. She was deciding whether she should allow him to live after daring to ask such a question.

"… Your Majesty," Vegeta tossed out, hoping the belated addition of her royal title would be enough to sooth her rage. It usually worked on himself and, fortunately, it seemed to take the homicidal edge off of her as well.

"Frieza took Mal and I in as children after our planet was destroyed by an asteroid," she said, her tone indicating that she knew the accidental destruction of her planet was anything but accidental. "What a coincidence that planets with populations strong enough to challenge the Colds always seemed to be in the direct path of space debris."

She considered the Saiyan for a moment and, for a fraction of a second, her expression softened. "You didn't think you were the only one, did you?"

Actually, he did. It never occurred to Vegeta there were other races Frieza feared and despised as thoroughly as the Saiyans. He'd never considered the possibility that anyone other than a Saiyan was capable of destroying his former master. But the galaxy was wide and Frieza's empire had been even wider. It should come as no surprise to him, especially after everything he'd experienced on Earth. No matter how strong he believed himself to be, there was always someone or something out there willing and able to knock him back into the dirt.

"You know, you weren't the Saiyan I was originally after but you'll due in a pinch. I wanted the other one. The one that thought he could kill Frieza and not even leave a grave behind for me to dance on."

Vegeta wasn't sure if she was referring to Kakarot or Trunks but it didn't matter either way. He knew what she meant. Maybe, in another life, he could have felt something resembling empathy for this woman. They had both been raised by the same sadistic monster. They were both remnants of a dead race. But most importantly, they had both been denied their right to vengeance. He wondered if it still ate away at her like it did him. Did she still lie awake at night, imagining what it would have been like to tear that ugly lizard limb from limb and bathe herself in his blood? Maybe not. She had managed to consolidate power and place herself on the empty throne while he had been too busy throwing himself into a bottomless pit of rage and chasing Kakarot's coattails. He'd often thought about what his life could have been had he not returned to Earth and, instead, made himself emperor of the known universe. Looking at the twisted vision before him, he was glad it hadn't been him.

Kali seamlessly drew herself out of the brief moment of introspection and commiseration with the Saiyan and addressed the general standing sentry behind them.

"I'm done with them. Get them out of my sight."

"Of course, My Lady," Jaeko swiftly herded them out of the throne room and visibly relaxed once the doors were closed behind him, relieved as the rest of them to have survived the empress.

"I'll lead you to your barracks," he said as he swept past them. There was no need. They all knew the way but no one told him so. Jaeko was nearly sprinting down the halls, attempting to put as much space between himself and the throne room as possible. The rest of them kept a healthy distance behind him, except for Vegeta, who took the opportunity to exchange a few words with his commanding officer.

"Why did you do it?" Vegeta demanded, keeping step just behind him.

"Do what?"

"Speak up for Bulma. You saved her. I want to know why."

"I didn't save anyone. It's my duty to ensure the Empire's resources are used efficiently. It would have been a waste of her abilities if…"

"You're full of shit. I want to know what your angle is. What do you want?"

Jaeko stopped his march down the hallway and took Vegeta by the scruff of his training suit.

"What I want is for you and your merry band of fuckups to keep your mouths shut, do your work, and not get me killed. I shouldn't have to tell you how things work around here. You're under my command which means I am responsible for your actions. When you do something as moronic and suicidal as bring up Kali's childhood, your putting my ass in the sling right next to yours. I have no idea how you survived the last five minutes. If anyone else had brought up Frieza in her presence, their innards would be decorating the throne room walls right now."

Vegeta removed himself from the man's grasp and snarled, "You didn't answer my question."

"That's as good of an answer as you're going to get," Jaeko huffed past him down the barracks hall and lingered outside the door to their new 'home'.

Their dormitory was spartan, to say the least. Eight bunk style beds were built into the walls, four on the right, four on the left. There was a door leading to a communal bathroom and storage consisted of one small closet. It was a tight squeeze but they all managed to shuffle in. Jaeko waited for them to settle before he addressed them.

"You're to report to Training Facility B at 0700. That's in eight hours. Get some sleep… or don't. I don't give a shit." The man looked drained as he hauled himself from the doorway, sliding it closed behind him.

They stood there, crammed together, shifting clumsily. "… Now what?" Yamcha pondered, finally breaking the awkward silence.

They were hesitant to speak. During their captivity, they had become accustomed to analyzing every morsel of information that escaped their lips and how it could be used against them by their abductors.

"Search the place," Bulma ordered. "There could be surveillance bugs anywhere."

They tore the room apart. No crevice or corner went unchecked. What few items of furniture they had been allotted were upturned. Mattresses were flipped and stuffing pulled out of pillows. Even the light fixtures in the ceiling were pulled down and taken apart. When they were satisfied they were truly alone, they slumped against walls, tables and unmade beds, any place that would support an exhausted body.

"Fuck," Krillin swore quietly.

"I second that," Tien added. He and a few of the others looked to Vegeta and waited, as if expecting his input on the profanity. "What are we going to do?"

"How the hell should I know?" Vegeta was done serving as de facto leader just because he was the only one among them, his mate excluded, with two brain cells to rub together. If he had his way, it would be just Bulma, Trunks and himself he would be dragging through this cluster fuck alive. The rest of them would have perished back on the Capsule Corp roof. Of course, if he had his way, he wouldn't have found himself back in the PTO in the first place.

"You've done this before. You were in this army," Eighteen said, clearly expecting a better response from him.

"Yeah, and I spent twenty-five years trying to get out!" he reminded her.

"Well we can't stay here. You heard what Kali said. She wants us to purge planets. We can't do that." Gohan's eyes went glassy and he looked like he might be sick. "I won't do that."

Sure, he wouldn't, Vegeta thought to himself. That's what every conscripted soldier said before they were sent on their first purge mission. They couldn't possibly bring themselves to kill so many in cold blood. Even hardened warriors would rail against the dishonor of murdering civilians. But they all did, every time, without fail. The whelp may think he was higher minded, that he would be willing to accept the consequences of disobedience when the time came, but Vegeta knew better. Under all the moralistic bullshit he'd inherited from his idiot father, Gohan was just as eager to save his own skin as the rest of them.

"You will if you don't have any other choice."

"Who says we don't have a choice?" Yamcha, for his part, still seemed optimistic. "We have Bulma, don't we? You can get these chips out, right B?"

"Oh sure. I'll just crack your noggin open like a watermelon and dig it out of your frontal lobe with my fingers."

It took Yamcha a moment too long to catch on to the dark sarcasm before his face fell, still trying to interpret exactly how it was she intended to save them. "Wait, what?"

"No, I can't get them out!" Bulma was equally fed up with everyone looking to her for answers. She was just as out of her element as the rest of them. "Do you have any idea how complex the human brain is? I still haven't figured out how they got the chips in without turning us into breathing potatoes! And even if I could remove the chips, then what? They still have Trunks and Goten. We're not going anywhere until we find them." It seemed to Bulma that everyone, except for her, had forgotten there were two little boys lost in the middle of all this.

Yamcha, now drained of his earlier confidence, slid down the wall he was leaning on to sit on the floor. "I know. Of course, we'll find them but… shouldn't we have a plan for when we do? We're not just giving up, are we?

Morale was dissipating fast and Bulma knew this was her moment to float the plan she'd been mulling over since Earth's destruction.

"We're not giving up. We can still go home again. I've been thinking," Bulma watched as ears perked up and the mood shifted again. "New Namek. If we can find a way to get there, we can use their dragon balls to…"

"Gods damn it, Bulma!" Piccolo shouted before she could finish her sentence. Bulma nearly jumped out of her skin at the outburst. She was not yet used to this more assertive version of the Namekian and she certainly wasn't expecting that assertiveness to be directed at her.

"What is it with you and the fucking dragon balls?!"

"Excuse me?" She was trying to formulate a plan. She knew there were holes, but she expected that he, of all people, would know the dragon balls were their only salvation.

"First of all, none of us, myself included, has any idea how to get to New Namek." Piccolo's revelation sucked the fragile sense of optimism Bulma had just built right out of the room. "I shouldn't have to explain to a self-proclaimed genius just how big a place the universe is and how impossible it would be to find one planet in endless space."

Her thoughts were racing, trying to find some flaw in his logic, some thread she could grasp onto before it unraveled.

"But let's suspend rational thought for a moment and suppose we were able to find New Namek and get there without our heads exploding. How long do you think it would take for Kali to figure out where we'd gone and why we went there? Do you have any idea how dangerous the dragon balls would be in her hands?"

"There are risks. I get it but…"

"No, you don't get it!" He was pissed and he wasn't holding back. Bulma looked to her friends for backup but no one came to her defense, the cowards. Even Vegeta just stood there with his arms crossed.

"Kali blew up the earth because she had a bad day. How many people do you think she would kill, how many planets would she destroy if she got her wish? You would doom the whole universe just to get your own home back," Piccolo reprimanded.

"No, I wouldn't." Of course, she would but she wasn't going to admit it now that he'd made her out to be such a selfish bitch.

"The dragon balls are not your own personal deus ex machina. Evil exists in the world and you can't always undo it."

How fucking dare Piccolo lecture her. The only reason he was even standing here, able to spout his preachy bullshit, was because she had decided to _abuse_ the power of the Namekian dragon balls by wishing him back to life. She wasn't going to allow him to rob them of hope, no matter how far fetched.

"Is that what you're going to tell Goten when you find him? 'Sorry kid. Your planet is gone and just about everyone you know and love is dead. Shit happens.'"

"I don't know Bulma. What are you going to tell him? That his parents are waiting at home for him with cupcakes and a new puppy?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" She didn't really need to ask. She remembered the look of disgust he gave her back in that prison cell, when she'd done all she could to comfort a devastated Goten and Gohan. But she wanted to hear it from his mouth. She wanted to hear him actually scold her for consoling two children who just lost their mother.

"Their mother died. They should have been allowed to grieve. You had no right…"

"And what gives you the right, exactly? You're not their father, as much as you like to pretend to be."

She knew she'd gone too far when she saw the devastation on his face that he tried to pass off as anger. Gohan too had turned away from her with a look of betrayal in his eyes. It was no secret that Piccolo was the closest thing to a living breathing father as the Son boys would ever have. He had helped raise Gohan from the time he was Trunks' age and Goten practically from birth. Goten had even taken to calling Piccolo 'Papa' for a time until Chichi, rather cruelly in her opinion, had insisted they start correcting him. She felt instant remorse for disparaging his role in their lives. She'd only said it to hurt him and she'd succeeded.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Piccolo still wouldn't look at her but, encouragingly, didn't tell her to go fuck herself. "I know you're just as invested as I am in getting the boys back and getting them somewhere safe."

"And we can't do that if we're all dead," Piccolo bellowed.

"I know." She had no intention of conceding any other points, but she hoped this one overlapping goal would be enough to serve as a very flimsy olive branch.

"Look," Krillin spoke up, finally breaking the tension to everyone's relief, "this isn't a situation we're going to get ourselves out of tonight. We're getting nowhere fighting about it. We all need to calm down and get some sleep. We'll figure it out in the morning."

It only took the suggestion of sleep for them to begin claiming bunks. The beds were hardly wide enough to accommodate one bulky muscled body but Eighteen and Krillin clambered into one of the top bunks together, pulling the perfunctory privacy curtain closed behind them. The rest of the men threw themselves onto the closest bed, tossing and turning until they found a comfortable position on the thin military issue mattress. They were all snoring before Bulma could even turn off the lights.

Bulma was beyond exhausted. She hadn't gotten more than a few hours of restless, nightmare disrupted sleep in over a week. She felt guilty allowing herself to relax when Trunks was still missing. It didn't help that the sound of her planet exploding was playing on a constant loop in her subconscious, jolting her awake whenever she found herself finally able to doze off. She could feel her body and mind starting to deteriorate after days without respite. She couldn't go on like this much longer. The thought of lying down on a real bed after spending so many nights curled up on a cold tile floor was enough to give her hope that she might be able to keep her eyes closed for more than a few minutes tonight. Maybe when she woke up, she would find herself in her own bed with Vegeta wrapped around her and Trunks banging on the door demanding breakfast.

Bulma toed her shoes off and reached under her shirt to discretely unhook her bra before joining Vegeta in his bottom bunk.

"Move over," she nudged, attempting to squeeze into the bed next to him. It was a far cry from the oversized king they shared at home, but they would both fit if they slept on their sides.

"There's no room. Take the top bunk."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious."

He wouldn't really make her sleep by herself. They hadn't slept in separate beds in years.

"I can't sleep unless you're next to me."

"Try."

She thought about shoving him over and forcing herself under the covers but she knew that was petulant. She hovered at the side of the bed for a moment, hoping he would change his mind, but he ignored her and rolled over to face the wall.

She reminded herself that she shouldn't take his rebuff personally. Vegeta was… Vegeta. She'd learned long ago that relying on him to recognize when she was emotionally fragile was a recipe for constant disappointment. He had the capacity to be tender and attentive but it was always on his terms. If he didn't want her in his space, she couldn't push her way in.

She heaved herself up the ladder into the bunk above his and pulled the threadbare blanket up to her chin. The pillow was hard and not very comfortable but, if she held it against her body, she could pretend she wasn't alone. She felt tears stinging the back of her eyes but refused to cry herself to sleep. Her muscles relaxed, her eyes fluttered closed, and she fell into another night of fitful slumber.

* * *

Two little bodies huddled together in a dark room on a concrete floor. They held tightly to one another, shivering both from cold and desperate fear. Neither of them could remember how they'd come to be in that dark room, or how long they'd been there, but it felt like a long time.

"Trunks?"

"What?"

"I'm really scared."

"You can't be scared. Saiyans fear nothing." He didn't want to tell Goten that he was just as terrified.

They heard footsteps coming towards them from the other side of the wall and the sound of the lock turning on the door. A bright shaft of light streamed into the room causing the boys to cover their eyes and squint after being so long in the dark.

A man entered. He was tall and thin with black hair and dark cloths, but they couldn't see his face in the shadows. Goten held onto his friend even tighter but Trunks pushed him off, rose to his feet, and held his small fists in front of his face.

"You don't need to be frightened, Trunks. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm not afraid of you!" He was lying.

"You're a brave little boy."

"You're just a weakling. I could beat you up if I wanted." Trunks had just started learning to sense ki. He wasn't very good at it yet, but he knew he was much stronger than this man. That didn't make him feel any less afraid.

"Maybe you could if you didn't have that collar on." Trunks gripped the metal band around his neck. He and Goten had both been wearing one since before they got lost. He didn't know what it was but he knew he didn't like it.

"If you come with me, I can take it off for you."

"I don't want to go anywhere with you. I want my mommy and daddy," his voice broke as he tried to hold back tears. His father would be disappointed if he cried.

"Your mommy and daddy are gone."

"I don't believe you! Who are you?!" A few tears escaped and Trunks angrily wiped them away with the back of his hand.

"My name is Mal. I'm going to take care of you from now on."

* * *

A/N: I've never seen the original Dragon Ball series but, after doing some research, I discovered that Chiaotzu has some crazy mind powers. In one episode he apparently jumbled Goku's guts around in his body to torture him. That's cold blooded. Maybe he should have tried that on Nappa before blowing himself up.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Get up."

The first thing Bulma noticed when she woke was the crick in her neck she'd developed overnight. It turned out sleeping on the floor was better for her spine than sleeping on a lumpy mattress.

"Get up," Vegeta insisted, more forcefully this time, and shook her shoulder again. She tried to ignore him and pull the sheet over her eyes, but he was having none of it. "You better not go back to sleep. In the military, 0700 means 0700, not whenever Bulma decides to roll her ass out of bed."

She glared at him as menacingly as she could manage with the morning crusties still in her eyes and pushed the blankets off her legs, swinging them over the edge of her bunk.

"Help me down," she demanded, holding out her arms. He looked annoyed but grabbed her around the waist, set her on the floor, then sniffed her hair and pushed her towards the bathroom.

"Take a shower. You reek." Bulma huffed and was about to rebound with her most mature 'No, you do!' until she realized he was already freshly bathed and dressed in a brand new PTO uniform. She lifted her arm to sniff herself confirming, yes, she did in fact reek.

"Charming," Vegeta praised sarcastically. Screw him. He knew what she was about. Ladylike was not a word often used to describe her.

The rest of the group was also starting to stir and groggily drag themselves out of bed. As they wandered bleary eyed toward the communal bathroom, she realized she wasn't the only one who stank. It had been days since any of them had showered. The smell of the collective body odor trapped in the small space of their dormitory was potent.

The bathroom was just as austere as the bedroom. There were three shower stalls, two toilette stalls, two urinals, and a double sink mirrored vanity. She'd found a selection of basic toiletries under the sink last night while searching for surveillance devices. She'd unwrapped the soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, safety razors and combs to rule them out as camouflaged microphones. She collected a selection of the items for herself before the others could claim them. There wouldn't be much of a demand for haircare supplies in this group, but the bar soap would be worth its weight in gold before long.

She claimed the last available shower stall and undressed behind the thin white curtain, tossing her soiled clothes on the floor. The water was only lukewarm and smelled faintly of chlorine, but it soothed her aching neck and shoulders none the less. The shampoo conditioner combo was about as awful as the versions available on Earth. The soap was astringent on her skin and a poor substitute for shaving cream on her prickly legs. Bulma wouldn't describe herself as the kind of woman with an overly elaborate beauty routine but long hot showers were one of the luxuries she indulged in. If she'd known she was going to be kidnapped by an intergalactic fascist regime, she would have packed some proper hair products and shower gel along with the dragon ball radar.

The radar. She'd almost forgotten she'd risked her life over that stupid thing. Piccolo had effectively nixed her New Namek idea and the rest of the group had sided with him, or at least no one had vocally disagreed. But she wasn't ready to give up on her plan just yet. She would puzzle out a way to make it work, with or without their help.

The tepid water suddenly turned icy and she yelped in shock, quickly turned off the tap.

"Whoever's next is getting a cold shower," she cautioned to the grumbling rabble on the other side of the curtain. "Can someone throw me a towel?"

A small white rectangle of ratty fabric was tossed over the curtain rod and she caught it before it landed in the murky water circling the drain. She dried off and attempted to wrap the thing around herself but it was barely large enough to cover her sensitive areas. There was a time in her life when she wouldn't have thought twice about parading half nude in front of these men but age and motherhood had effectively smothered her inner exhibitionist. Luckily, they all seemed just as uncomfortable and kept their eyes averted as she dashed back to the small closet, hiding herself behind the door.

An assortment of uniforms hung neatly, arranged from largest to smallest. Bulma held the hangers to her body, trying to approximate the correct size. The garments were unisex and a bit shapeless but she didn't mind. She was just glad to finally have a change of underwear. She slid into the black flight suit, noting it left more to the imagination than the version Vegeta wore. She didn't bother trying to wrestle the bulky armor over her chest. It was clear they were not designed with women shaped like her in mind. Besides, she doubted she would be seeing any combat in whatever science department she was assigned to.

She was just buckling her knee high white boots when she was interrupted by a very embarrassed Tien, wearing nothing but a short towel around his waist.

"Ummm… I need…"

"Yeah sure." Bulma said, training her eyes on the ceiling as she edged her way past him and out of the closet.

By this time, the rest of the Z Warriors were also standing around, red faced and mostly naked, waiting to collect their new uniforms. This was so fucking awkward. She dove back into her bunk and closed the curtain while she towel dried her hair.

"Gods, do I not want to wear this," Tien grumbled.

"You and me both," Piccolo commiserated.

"Quit your belly aching and just be grateful they gave us real pants," Vegeta chastised. "I don't know if you recall the indecently short shorts Napa was so fond of, but they used to be standard issue."

"Like any of us could ever scrub that image from our memory." Krillin shivered at the recollection.

"They were… so short," Chiaotzu squeaked sadly.

By the time they'd all finished dressing, it was five to seven. They sprinted across the sprawling compound of non-descript government buildings, leaving Bulma winded and lagging behind. Jaeko was already waiting for them when they reached their destination.

"Good morning ladies. I hope you all got your beauty sleep. Today you'll be reporting for your first day of boot camp."

Vegeta glared at his commanding officer. The idea of being lumped in with a bunch of cadets and completing menial training exercises while some constipated drill sergeant yelled obscenities in his face was absurd. He'd started the Saiyan version of 'boot camp' before he was out of diapers, completed PTO basic training as a toddler, and was promoted to the rank of officer by the age of ten.

"Is this really necessary?" Vegeta grumbled.

"I'm afraid rules are rules but your experience has been duly noted." Jaeko dug a small pin out of his uniform pocket and tossed it to Vegeta. "Welcome back to ranks Captain Vegeta."

The pin was silver with two parallel bars on the face. He examined it in his palm before flicking it back. "I was a Lieutenant General when I left."

"And then you committed treason and went AWOL for eight years." Jaeko said, roughly pinning the trinket to Vegeta's breastplate. "So now you're a Captain."

"Does that mean Vegeta is our boss?" Gohan interjected.

"It sure does." The group groaned and muttered a few choice expletives.

"Except for you two, of course." Jaeko gestures to Bulma and Chiaotzu. "You've been assigned non-combat positions."

Bulma breathed a small sigh of relief. She had been worried for a moment he'd forgotten his promise to assign her to the science department. Without a doubt, she would have ended the day as a bloody smear on the floor if she'd been thrown into boot camp with this lot.

"The rest of you are late for your first day of basic," Jaeko said, holding open the door to the training facility and stepping aside to allow their entry.

* * *

Bulma had been dropped off at the Science and Technology Department without so much as a 'good luck'. She had little idea of what to do or who to report to so she'd wandered around aimlessly, surreptitiously peeking through windows and catching glimpses past swinging doors.

What she observed was nothing short of mind blowing. She'd seen a mini black hole contained by little more than metal and plexiglass, ferocious looking bioengineered creatures floating in stasis pods, and a weapon that literally turned a man's entire body inside out from the bellybutton. That last one caused her to throw up in the back of her throat a little and convinced her it would be best to just sit and wait in the lobby for someone to fetch her.

As she waited, she felt a familiar tingly sensation at the back of her neck and the tips of her fingers. It was the feeling she always got when she was on the verge of scientific revelation. She needed to know how it all worked. She hadn't felt this excited since she was a child, tinkering around in her father's lab for the first time. She'd thought she knew everything there was to know about the laws of science and nature, but now there was suddenly a whole universe of new discoveries unfolding before her. She wondered what her first project would be, if she would be assigned to one of the awe-inspiring experiments she'd watched covertly.

It was that thought that turned her excitement back into anxiety and shame. The work being done in those labs had the potential to cause untold pain and suffering across the universe. The technology keeping her and her friends enslaved was probably developed in this very building. Wherever she was assigned, her talents would be warped beyond her control and put to use in ways that would likely horrify her.

"Can I help you?" a nasally voice sounded from behind her. Bulma rose from her seat and turned around to introduce herself.

She was greeted by a round, squat, man. He looked as close to human as any creature she'd seen since her kidnap from Earth. The only feature that gave him away as alien was the thick forest green beard growing out of his neck and nowhere else on his face. The sparse green hair on his head was pulled into a greasy ponytail and a paunch extended past the waistline of his pants, exposing his gut.

"I'm Bulma Briefs. I've been assigned here."

"To what department?" he asked shortly.

"I'm not sure exactly." The man let out an annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes at her.

"Who sent you here?"

"Jaeko," she responded. "General Jaeko."

"Of course," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What did you say your name was?"

"Bulma. Bulma Briefs."

"Miss Briefs…"

"It's Doctor Briefs actually. I have PhDs in astrophysics and mechanical engine…"

"Great," he interrupted with clear disinterest in her qualifications. Though now he seemed to be noticing her other attributes and was paying rapt attention to a part of her anatomy well below eye level. "Don't fret, m'lady. I'm sure there's something we can find for you to do around here."

Gross. She knew this guy's type. Unfortunately, Capsule Corp employed more than its fair share of them. They spent most of their time in front of a screen, were incapable of decoding social cues, and had a deep seeded resentment towards women, especially women who were smarter than them. Apparently, creepy IT department guys who stared at her boobs and called her 'm'lady' were a scourge she couldn't escape even in the depths of space.

"I'll work on getting you an assignment. In the meantime, I could really use a cup of instabrew."

'Are you fucking kidding me?' she thought to herself. If she didn't need an assignment here so badly, she would have told him to kiss the whitest part of her ass, but her terrifying encounter with Kali made it clear what would happen to her if she didn't make herself useful. If fetching coffee for this cretin kept her alive, she would just have to grin and bear it.

"Right away," Bulma said with a painful smile on her face.

* * *

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

The Z Fighters hadn't even made it through the door before the drill sergeant was on them, like white on rice. He was a diminutive man, an inch or two smaller than Krillin, but what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in intensity. He resembled a warthog with short bristly hair, a long snout, and sharp menacing tusks. His face was deep purple but it was difficult to determine whether that was his natural coloring or the result of hypertension. Judging by the pulsing vein on his forehead, Vegeta would guess the later.

"GET IN LINE YOU PUSSY PUKES! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

There were already a few dozen soldiers lined up in formation against the wall and they hustled to join them.

"Listen up, shit stains! For the remainder of time you are under my command, arriving on time means arriving ten minutes early and arriving late means I will personally rip off your head AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

"YES SIR!" the other cadets yelled.

The sergeant walked down the line of terrified new recruits, looking for a weak link. It didn't take him long to find one. Yamcha was sweating profusely and clenching his fists at his side, unsure of what to do with his hands. Vegeta had to bite back a gleeful cackle at the other man's discomfort.

"What's your name, soldier?"

"Yamcha, sir."

"Yamcha? Yamcha what?"

"I don't have a last name, sir."

"You don't have a last name?! Only bastards and drag queens don't have last names! Are you a bastard, son?!"

"No sir. My father and mother were married, sir."

"Well I guess that makes you a drag queen then. Do you like to wear woman's clothes and dance around on stage?"

"No sir!"

"You think there's something wrong with a man wearing women's clothes?! Are you some kind of bigot, private?!"

At this point, Vegeta's face was threatening to crack in half if his shit eating grin got any wider. This would easily rank in the top five moments of schadenfreude in his entire life, and Vegeta was a man who spent a lot of time taking pleasure in the humiliation of others. Unfortunately, the pig faced sergeant had taken note of his self satisfied smirk and was now focusing his ire on him.

"And just what the fuck do you find so god damn funny?!"

Vegeta had a drill instructor as a small child that reminded him very much of this one. He'd ripped out the man's left kidney and gnawed on it like a chew toy for a few hours before Nappa could wrestle it away from him. He'd still been teething at the time. Somehow, he doubted his superiors would find his actions as adorable now were he to try the same thing as an adult.

"Nothing. It's not funny at all."

"Are you mentally challenged, boy?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"That's 'Sir' to you, dip shit. What makes you think you have the right to address me without the proper respect I am due?!"

"Sir is a title used when addressing a superior," Vegeta pointed to the small pin affixed to his armor. "If anything, you should be addressing me as sir."

The sergeant glared at him for a few moments before chuckling to himself.

"Well, well, well. Pucker up and bend over, boys. We've got an officer in our midst," he said, tapping on Vegeta's breastplate. "Whose wife did you fuck to land yourself back in basic training?"

Vegeta simply returned the glare and stayed silent, refusing to dignify the vulgar rhetorical question with a response. The diminutive little man knew when he was being challenged and rose up into the air to float just above eye level with him.

"Pay attention, fancy man, 'cause I'm only going to say this once. You may be a big-swing'n-dick on the other side of those doors but, when you're in here, I own your ass. Do you understand me?"

Vegeta was not above getting into a pissing contest with the pig but was definitely not in the mood to play games. The only solution was to maintain his dominance through silence. In other words, ignore him until he got bored and picked on someone else.

"I SAID DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

"…"

"So that's how it's gonna be?"

The sergeant stared at him and his left eye glowed from inside the socket. Vegeta thought he could see his name mirrored in the man's iris.

"Captain… well excuse the fuck out of me, that's Prince Vegeta. Didn't know I was in the presence of royalty," he sneered. "These are some impressive numbers. You're a tough guy, aren't you? I've met a thousand arrogant little cunts like you. You think you're special because you were strong once. It's my job to teach you that strength doesn't belong to you anymore. You will only be as powerful as the Empire requires you to be to complete your mission, no more, no less."

"And what does that mean, exactly?"

"How's about I show you, tough guy." The sergeant blinked and Vegeta felt something… change. "I want you to show me your war face."

He couldn't place it at first, couldn't figure out what was different. But then he felt the warm, tingling, magnetic pull in his belly. Felt it move from his core, through his chest, down his arms and legs and, finally, spark between his fingers. His ki. It was there. All of it. _And it felt so fucking good._

He had a narrow window of opportunity. If he acted now, he could easily kill the warthog, collect Bulma, find Trunks, and destroy anyone that tried to stop him. But it would only work if he could make his move before the man realized his mistake.

"I'm waiting, sweetheart. Do you need a written invitation? I said show me your god damn WAR FACE!"

All he had to do was reach out and crush the man's skull. And he would, but first he needed to release the overwhelming surge of power that was threatening to drown him. His ki was trying to find an escape from his body any way it could. It was burning under his skin, almost oozing out of his pores. He concentrated on the white hot light he could see when he closed his eyes and reached out with his senses to touch it. As soon as he did, the dam broke. His golden aura sparked to life and he let out a furious primal scream. Unrestrained energy poured out of him from every direction until he was able to wrestle it back under control, mold it, and shape it into a ball in the palm of his hand. All he had to do was throw it and he would be free.

But before he could, it vanished, sucked back into his hand. He could feel the ki draining from his body like someone had pulled the plug in the bathtub. It had been there and then it was gone, but not all gone. There was still a tiny spark. Just the hint of the magnetic energy remained in his hand. He groped for it, pulling and tugging as hard as he could to release the rest, to break the dam again, but it was no use.

"Do you get it now, tough guy?"

He did. It was ingenious in its cruelty. Whatever had been punched into their skulls was not like the collar. It didn't suppress ki but rather manipulated it and divvied it out in measured doses. They would be given just enough power to massacre the population of the next planet to catch the eye of the PTO but never enough to mount a successful mutiny against their overlords.

"If you maggots survive the coming weeks and complete your training, you will be weapons of war, bringing civilization and prosperity to this trash heap of a universe," the sergeant said to the soldiers. "But until that day, you are dog shit. You are the lowest form of life in existence. My orders are to weed out the soft, the spineless, and the pacifists among you. Anyone who can't hack it here will find themselves joining the rotting corpses left behind on their home planets. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes sir!"

"BULLSHIT! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"YES SIR!"

* * *

Data entry. That was her assignment. Bulma Briefs, her two doctorates, and her 205 IQ were copying text from one spreadsheet into another spreadsheet, line by line. It was as mind numbing as it was humiliating. She sat at a desk in the middle of a bullpen with dozens of other workers mindlessly typing away. They all had the same glazed over look on their faces, like they weren't fully awake.

It had only taken Bulma about five minutes from the time she was assigned a desk to determine she would literally lose her mind if she was forced to do this kind of work for any length of time. It took another fifteen minutes after that for her to build an inconspicuous scanner from random office supplies and write a program to do the job for her. All she had to do was shuffle the enormous pile of hard copies around every once and a while to make herself look busy.

She'd spent her free time accessing what she assumed to be the Empire's equivalent to the internet. She'd been able to sate her curiosity about a whole host of questions that had been needling her since they first landed on the planet. Apparently, gravity and atmospheric stabilizers were used to make otherwise inhospitable planets livable for a wide range of species. She'd also learned the language she'd been speaking her whole life was known as 'Galactic Standard' and was the most commonly spoken language across the known universe. No one knew exactly how people on planets separated by millions of lightyears had developed the same language, but it was theorized it had been passed down over eons by an ancient common ancestor. It made Bulma feel rather stupid that she'd been communicating with Saiyans, Namekians, and a whole host of other aliens this entire time without ever questioning how it was possible.

After she'd exhausted the offerings of Space Wikipedia, she'd moved on to hacking the PTO's internal servers. She spent hours researching the incredible technology produced by the Empire, only a small fraction of which she'd actually witnessed herself. She'd been able to gather some low-level intelligence without much fuss. She'd pulled up the schematics for the ki dampening collar. She'd learned the sonic wave unleashed on the Earth just prior to the purge was a weapon that produced something akin to an electromagnetic pulse. It was designed to temporarily incapacitate any individuals with enough ki to mount a counter attack.

She'd attempted to dig deeper into the ki manipulation technology but the security around it was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was perfect, faultless, absolutely impenetrable. Bulma had routinely hacked into top secret military data bases back home without even trying but this made her feel more like someone's grandma using Google for the first time.

Buried within the code, she kept coming across the same electronic signature over and over again. Mal. She remembered that name. It was the co regent, the one Kali told them they would likely never meet. There were references to him everywhere, even in the documents she was supposed to be manually transcribing. In all the information she'd been able to glean so far, it seemed very few had ever actually seen him in person, to the point where some questioned whether he even existed. She might have been skeptical herself, had he not left his fingerprints all over the technology and engineering projects she'd researched. Every inventor had their own style, a signature that marked their creations. She could recognize the work of another artist when she saw it. His work was clean, devoid of influence from other sources, which told her he worked alone. His processes were methodical, even obsessive. His finished products were sleek and visually pleasing. But most telling of all, everything he created had a sadistic edge to it, some function that could be used to inflict pain.

Bulma spent hours trying to crack the code surrounding the Empire's most highly guarded projects but got nowhere. She was so wrapped up in the task, she didn't even notice as others began leaving for the day until she was the last one left in the office. She didn't want to halt her search just yet but also didn't want to draw attention to herself by burning the midnight oil. She signed off, careful to double check that she'd erased any evidence of her activities, before standing and stretching her aching back. She slipped the scanning device into her pocket and pressed the small button on the side of her desk, collapsing the entire thing into a box the size of her fingernail. It unnerved her to see her family's signature technology without the familiar CC anywhere in sight, but rather the ugly black stamp of the PTO on the packaging.

She picked up the box and dropped it in the waiting receptacle on her way out the door. It was a clever way to ensure work productivity. No reason to waste time personalizing your work space and no guarantee you would work next to the same people from one day to the next. That meant less of an opportunity to make friends, and less work hours lost to chit chat. As an employer herself, she could see the benefits of such a policy. As an employee, it was nothing short of soul sucking.

Bulma's stomach growled loudly as she exited the building and she realized just how light headed she was. The PTO did not believe in midday breaks so she hadn't eaten anything since she'd complained about being hungry the day before.

As she walked to the mess hall, she couldn't get the code she'd been working on off her mind. She'd never met a security system she wasn't sure she could crack, given enough time, but she wasn't so sure about this one. This code was nothing less than flawless. There were no back doors in and no way to manipulate the software. It was disheartening but she was nowhere near giving up. All of their lives were depending on her. The way out of this place was somewhere behind that impenetrable firewall. More importantly, it was where she would find her son. Kali had all but spelled it out for her. They had 'plans' from Trunks and Goten. She knew enough about Vegeta's childhood in the PTO to know, whatever those plans were, they would horrify her. Part of her didn't want to know but part of her couldn't rest until she knew every detail.

Bulma scanned the crowded mess hall for her friends, hoping to find a familiar face. She felt uncharacteristically timid trying to navigate through the throng of hungry behemoths. The room was packed with men towering over her at anywhere from seven to ten feet tall. She felt like she might be trampled by the crowd and no one would even notice her underfoot. She suddenly understood why Vegeta was always so touchy about his stature. He was about average height compared to a human man, but here he was practically pint sized.

Bulma was starving but was too nervous to brave the mess hall alone. She was about to turn around and return to the dormitory when she felt a hand grasp her wrist. She almost screamed before she realized who it was.

"You shouldn't be wandering around alone," Vegeta scolded. "It's dangerous."

"I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself," she said, not letting on how unsure of that fact she'd been just moments before. The rest of the gang followed right behind Vegeta and joined them in the cafeteria line.

Bulma inspected the offerings in the hot trays suspiciously, not readily identifying any of it as edible. She thought she recognized one dish as something akin to steamed lobster but startled back as the thing wriggled and hissed when she tried to pick it up with the serving tongs.

"Thank Dende for photosynthesis," Piccolo remarked as he bypassed the entire line with only a few water bottles on his tray.

Both Vegeta and Gohan seemed unfazed by the bazaar food offerings and loaded as many trays as they could carry with a sampling of every dish. Bulma herself settled on a salad topped with a mystery meat she could pretend was chicken if she closed her eyes and a brightly colored cake that at least smelled a little bit like chocolate.

Once they had collected their food, Bulma stood awkwardly at the end of the line as she tried to find a vacant space. Vegeta didn't bother with any of that and led them to a table occupied by a cadre of soldiers. All he had to do was glare and grunt and the table emptied, some leaving their food behind in their haste to evacuate the Saiyan's newly claimed territory.

"What was that all about?" Krillin asked.

"There are enough people around here from Frieza's time who remember me and know I'm not to be fucked with."

"Does that mean they'll stay away from me if they know you're my honey?" Bulma asked, as she took a seat next to him.

"No, it means that I still have a lot of enemies lurking around who would gladly leave little pieces of you for me to find if they thought it would even vaguely irritate me." he said, pushing her far enough down the bench that they were no longer touching.

"So, what assignment did you end up with?" Eighteen asked Bulma as she picked at the weirdly gelatinous meat on her tray.

"Ugh, data entry. Can you believe it? They have one of the most brilliant scientists in the universe at their disposal and they have me copy pasting to a spreadsheet."

"Where did they assign Chiaotzu?" Tien questioned.

"I don't know. He wasn't with me." Bulma answered.

As if on cue, the little man meandered up to their table and set his tray down, taking the last empty seat. Though it didn't seem possible, he looked even paler than usual.

"Hey buddy. Are you alright?" Tien asked warily.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Did they really pair you up with that creepy guy that interrogated us?" Yamcha questioned. The doll prince just scowled back, silently reiterating that he didn't want to share with the group.

Bulma could tell Chiaotzu was eager for a change of subject and decided to oblige him. "As much as it sucks doing grunt work, at least I have access to a computer. I was able to get on the Imperial network and hack into some of the OUCH!" Vegeta had elbowed her in the side. "What is your problem?"

"Do you really think you should be talking about that here?"

"Why not? It's too loud in here for anyone to hear us," Bulma said, gesturing to the general chaos going on in the mess hall around them. "There's about a thousand conversations going on at once. No one is going to be able to pick up on ours."

"Like I was saying," Bulma said as Vegeta crossed his arms and huffed. "I was able to find some information about the chips they installed in us. It modulates ki. They can raise and lower your power as needed, based on the strength of the opponent your facing."

"Yeah, we got a demonstration on that today," Gohan said, casting a sympathetic look at Vegeta who, thankfully, didn't notice.

"I haven't been able to get into any of the really top-secret stuff. I was hoping I would be able to find some way of removing or at least deactivating the chips."

"I'm sure if you keep at it, you'll find something." Eighteen said reassuringly.

"I don't know. The security around it is unbelievable. I'm pretty sure it was coded by the other twin. Mal. He seems to be behind all of the tech around here. He's… incredible. He might even be better than me."

They all stopped eating at once and stared at her in disbelief. Bulma never admitted to being second best at anything unless the defeat was decisive. To admit someone might have beaten her at her own game was astonishing.

"We're all counting on you B," Yamcha said, breaking the silence.

"Well you shouldn't be," Vegeta interjected angrily before turning to Bulma. "What you're doing is incredibly dangerous and it's going to get you killed. Don't be a hero."

"Well someone needs to be," she said pointedly.

"Vegeta's right," Krillin added. "Things are already bad enough. There's no use putting yourself in danger for no reason."

"No reason? Getting out of here isn't reason enough for you?" She couldn't believe that Krillin, of all people, was turning on her.

"You're trying to stay positive. I get it," Piccolo said, treading lightly after their argument the previous night, "but, you said it yourself. You don't even know if you'll be able to find a way past the chips. I think we all need to accept that there might be here for the foreseeable future."

She looked to the others down the table for support but none of them offered any. Deciding she'd had enough hopelessness for one day, Bulma pushed her tray away and rose from the table, leaving her friends and her unfinished meal behind her.

* * *

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. The tone is definitely lighter than the previous chapters but things are about to get real dark, real quick.

Some of you may recognize a few of the drill sergeant's lines from the movie Full Metal Jacket. I tried not to make it a blatant ripoff but R. Lee Ermey was such an amazing character actor, it's impossible to imagine a drill instructor without being reminded of him. He passed away earlier this year and this chapter is my tiny little homage to him.

I also want to thank all of you who have commented so far! Your praise literally gives me life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Days went by uneventfully and passed quickly. There was little time to dwell on the conditions of their servitude, as downtime was a rare luxury in the PTO. The Z Warriors rose before the dim Geminon sun every morning to report to basic training. They would spar and drill for hours while enduring the verbal abuse of their pig faced sergeant. Bulma continued to show up at her IT job, all the while persisting in her attempts to hack into the secure intelligence database, so far without success. And poor Chiaotzu still hadn't told them about his shadowy assignment but was becoming more withdrawn and morose by the day.

Routine leant a sense of normalcy to the otherwise totally abnormal circumstances. Even the awkwardness of nine people sharing a tiny living space gradually dissipated and they all learned far more about each other than they ever wanted or needed to know. After sharing a bathroom with Piccolo for several weeks, it was eventually revealed that, yes, Namekians do have boy parts, though what exactly they're used for still remained a mystery. As it turned out, Tien had a dietary aversion to dairy but continued to eat two bowls of ice cream every night at dinner, thus rendered the toilet stall completely unusable for hours afterward. And the question of how Krillin had landed a wife so far out of his league was answered on a nightly basis by the enthusiastic squeaking of both rusty mattress springs and the android.

Bulma, on the other hand, was in the midst of her longest dry spell in recent memory. Vegeta flat out refused to touch her and they had been sleeping in separate beds since their first night in the dormitory. Vegeta had always been intensely private about their relationship, sometimes bordering on neurotic. He'd never so much as held her hand in front of another living soul outside of their own home. It would be mortifying for him to make love to her in a room full of people he professed to hate, with nothing but a thin curtain to provide the illusion of privacy. She didn't want to cause him embarrassment or make him uncomfortable but she also didn't know how much longer she could go on living like roommates with the father of her son.

But Bulma's need for physical intimacy was about more than just sexual frustration. She was incredibly lonely. Even surrounded by all of her closest friends, she couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd felt so alone. Sometimes, she thought she was the only one who believed they would ever make it out of this place alive. Holding on to hope for herself day in and day out was hard enough but doing it for eight other people was exhausting and isolating. She was growing more resentful by the day, working every waking moment on cracking the security system with no results. It was a daunting task under the best of circumstances but it seemed near impossible without encouragement or support from the people she was trying to help.

She was currently staring into her computer screen, straining her eyes to focus after hours of monotonous work. She had run out of ways to manipulate the code and had designed a program that would make millions of attempts per minute at guessing the username and password to the protected files, simply by stringing random numbers and letters together. A bar at the bottom of the screen indicated the amount of time estimated before completion. It read two hundred and sixty-seven years, four months, and thirteen days. Bulma sighed with her head in her hands, trying hard not to bash her fists against the keyboard in frustration.

"Working hard or hardly working?" Bulma jumped as she realized her supervisor was standing right behind her. She quickly minimized the screen she had been looking at and pulled up the spreadsheet she was supposed to be working on, shuffling a few papers on her desk to give the impression that she was busy doing something.

"Working hard. Promise," she said anxiously, hoping he hadn't noticed her staring into space for the last hour or so.

"If your work product wasn't so impressive, I would wonder what it is you do all day. Whenever I look over here, it seems like you're off in your own world."

"Well, that's me. I've always been a little… spacey," Bulma tittered nervously though a forced smile.

"Well, if you're not busy, maybe you'd like to have lunch with me. I brought enough for two. I'm not supposed to allow midday breaks but I think I can make an exception just this once," he said, leaning on her desk a little too close for comfort. Bulma struggled not to visibly shudder in disgust.

"Actually, I just started on a new stack," she said, pulling an enormous pile of papers between her and her boss.

"Oh… well in that case, quit slacking off and get back to work. You're not here to brows the net all day."

Bulma wasn't proud of herself but she couldn't resist flipping the bird at him as he walked away.

* * *

The new cadets had been sparring for hours since the early morning. Most of them were bruised and bloodied by this point, barely able to form fists, let alone hit each other with them. All except the recruits from Earth who, much to the displeasure of their drill sergeant, seemed to be far more skilled than he initially expected.

Vegeta had been exclusively sparring with the Z Warriors, the other soldiers refusing to face him after the frightening display he'd put on his first day. Their power levels had been set to a paltry 250, giving them limited use of flight and ki blasts. The level playing field allowed for a focus on skill rather than raw strength but, even without the use of ki, Vegeta had dominated every match.

His first bout had been against Tien. His form was adequate but his bulk kept him slow. Eighteen had a smooth, sophisticated fighting style but, without the benefit of her infinite bionic power source, her thin limbs failed to deliver the impact necessary to take out a physically larger opponent. Yamcha had been even more of a disappointment than expected. Krillin, surprisingly, was one of the most skilled of them all. His years of martial arts training were plainly evident when the disparity in ki was mitigated.

Vegeta was currently fighting Gohan and could tell he was rusty. He could see sparks of Kakarot in his offensive style but the majority of his moves were unfamiliar, likely due to Piccolo's influence in his early years of training. It was clear the boy was no warrior. He hesitated and rarely took the opportunity to strike first. Though the spar was less one sided than the others he'd had that day, it still ended with Gohan in a headlock, tapping out before he ran out of air.

A whistle blew sharply, signaling the end of the match.

"Switch partners!" the drill sergeant bellowed and the men shuffled around to find a new opponent.

"This is going to be… satisfying," Piccolo said, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest towards the Saiyan.

"I'm flattered. I had no idea I had such an effect on you." Vegeta snickered. "I'll try to make it last but, if the kid's defensive strategy is any reflection of yours, this is going to be over quickly."

"I never could teach that boy to dodge."

The whistle blew again and the match was on.

The two circled each other for a few moments, just watching how the other moved. Despite having shared battlefields on more than one occasion, once on opposing sides, neither had ever taken the opportunity to really study the other. Vegeta struck first, sending a kick to Piccolo's left flank, before returning to a defensive stance and waiting for his opponent's move. Piccolo responded when he saw an opening and stuck at Vegeta's middle with a well placed fist.

Then the fight began in earnest. At first, the men seemed to be evenly matched with Vegeta having the advantage of speed and Piccolo the benefit of size. Piccolo's actions were fluid and he carried his body with surprising agility. Vegeta was precise in every movement, each punch, kick, parry, and dodge made after meticulous planning and forethought. Both were cautious, rarely leaving themselves open to attack. When one of them did land a blow, it was damaging and purposeful. Neither was pulling their punches.

As the match went on, Piccolo seemed to tire faster than his opponent. His attacks, though still nearly perfect in execution, were slower and his defenses slightly delayed. Vegeta wasted no time before taking advantage, landing a kidney shot and then a swift kick to the solar plexus. Before Piccolo could recover, he was hit with a fist to the side of his face, stunning him and leaving him open to further attack. He saw Vegeta's fist coming towards his face again but, before it could make contact, Piccolo dodged and charged, catching the smaller man in the gut with his shoulder and knocking him down onto the mat.

The sound of the whistle rang again through the gym. "Back to your corners!"

Bullshit! Vegeta refused to let it end like that. He would not let the Namekian walk away thinking he had won. He'd gotten in a lucky shot at the very end after being dominated for the entire match. The self righteous look on Piccolo's face as he held out his hand to help Vegeta off the floor was infuriating.

Instead of taking the hand up, Vegeta smacked it out of his face and swept out his leg, knocking Piccolo to the ground next to him.

The whistle blew again, louder and longer than before. "I said back to your corners!"

Piccolo hit the mat, winded and stunned. Vegeta took the opportunity to pin him down with a knee to the chest. He grabbed the larger man by the top of his breastplate and head butted him, ignoring the blunt pain in his own forehead as it made contact with Piccolo's nose. That was enough to bring Namekian out of his daze. He retaliated with an uppercut but was too slow, hitting only air instead of Vegeta's chin. Vegeta landed another blow to the face and raised his fist to strike again but paused, debating whether his opponent had had enough. Before he could decide, Vegeta was grabbed by the collar of his uniform, hauled off the green man, and tossed roughly back onto the mat.

"WHAT PART OF BACK TO YOUR CORNERS IS UNCLEAR TO YOU, DIPSHIT?!" the drill instructor roared into Vegeta's face as he shook him by the scruff of his neck. Vegeta stood and brushed himself off as he exchanged a distrustful glare with Piccolo, spitting a combination of blood and saliva at the larger man's feet.

"Alright tough guy," the sergeant said, narrowing his eyes at Vegeta. "You want to fight?"

The warthog pivoted his attention to Piccolo and trained his beady, glowing, scouter eye on him. The change in Piccolo was instantaneous. An aura glowed around him and Vegeta could feel the spike in his ki.

"You got yourself a fight. Let's see how long you can stay on your feet now."

Vegeta took a defensive stance, not willing to make the first move. He was clearly outmatched now. Piccolo's was pissed off and not above pressing his unfair advantage. Maybe taking a cheap shot at him was not such a good idea after all.

Piccolo came at him fast, too fast for Vegeta to dodge. He tried to intercept instead but the power behind the hit was too much and the blow knocked him off his feet. Piccolo kneeled over him, lifted his head off the ground by the flame of his hair, and buried his fist in Vegeta's face. Vegeta felt his teeth rattle in his skull and the cartilage in his nose crack and splinter.

"Hit him again," the drill sergeant insisted and Piccolo complied, landing several more cracks.

"Again!"

By this point, Vegeta's face was a pulpy mess. His features were swollen and shifted at unnatural angles. Blood poured out of his nose and mouth, causing a gurgling sound every time he took a breath.

"He's already down," Piccolo said, easing the pressure on the knee he'd used to pin the other man.

"I don't give a shit if he's down or not. I said hit him again!"

Piccolo hesitated for a moment before rising to his feet, refusing to continue the fight.

"Is there something wrong with your hearing?!"

"What's the point? He can't fight back!"

"And just what the fuck to you think you're here training for, son? Do you think it's going to be a fair fight out there?" the sergeant said, pointing upwards to the sky.

"You are a tool for annihilation! Your job is to exterminate the weak! If you can't take out Captain Shit-For-Brains, what are you going to do when you come face to face with a crying woman with a brat on her teet, begging for her life?"

The room went silent, the only sound the wet heaving breaths coming from the Saiyan splayed out on the floor.

"I know exactly what you'll do 'cause I've seen it a million times before. You'll choke. You'll turn chicken shit and leave them alive. Do you know what happens to the stragglers left behind after a purge? They're swept up by the cleanup droids with the rest of the animal life and processed like livestock. Their meat is torn off their bones while they're still alive and packaged into protein supplements. Remember that the next time you bite into one of your ration bars."

"Now, I'm only going to say this one more time. Hit. Him. Again."

Piccolo looked down at Vegeta. He was still conscious. One of his eyes was swollen shut but the good one was staring daggers at the Namekian. Piccolo stepped over him, placing one foot on either side of the Saiyan's midsection and bent down, lifting Vegeta's top half off the mat by his collar. His raised his fist hesitantly, wavering in the air, unsure whether to deliver another blow to the already injured man below him.

But Vegeta didn't hesitate. He gathered every last ounce of energy he had left, raised both feet and planted them into the Namekian's gut, launching him across the room. Piccolo crashed into the opposite wall, leaving debris and clouds of pulverized plaster floating through the air. Vegeta sat up to take stock of the damage he'd caused, smiled through the blood in his mouth then dropped back down to the mat with a thud, passed out cold.

* * *

He floated, weightless in the void of sensory deprivation. He couldn't tell if he was unconscious, asleep, or dead. Cognition was slow to return as it filtered through his battered short-term memory. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here or where 'here' was. He tried to open his eyes but a sharp sting kept them tightly closed. Only the smell of recycled air and the mask tightly strapped to his face brought him back to the present. He was in a regen tank.

Vegeta fucking hated the tanks. He had to fight the familiar claustrophobic panic that urged him to blast his way out. There was something about being trapped in an oversized fishbowl, naked and exposed to the world that made his skin crawl.

Despite his loathing for them, he'd wound up spending the greater part of his youth in the tanks. Between the regular beatings he took from his superiors and the frequent suicide missions the Saiyans were assigned to, he may as well have taken up permanent residence. The medics on Frieza's old base ship had even named one of the contraptions after him, as he was more likely than not to be floating in it on any given day. Though he'd come to tolerate the experience, learning to associate it with a boost in power following a grievous injury, there were few sensations he hated more than being engulfed by cold, gelatinous, antiseptic fluid.

A muted buzz sounded through the liquid before a drain opened beneath him and he felt his feet slowly drift down to solid ground. He wasted no time tearing the mask off and clearing the gunk from his eyes when his head broke the surface. He could see a red, misshapen blob on the other side of the wet glass and realized it was Jeako when the dome popped open. He was patiently waited for Vegeta to immerge, holding a towel in the crook of his arm.

"Looks like it was cold in there," Jaeko said, his line of sight dropping below the waist before he tossed the towel over. Vegeta rolled his eyes and wrapped the cloth around himself.

"Should I even bother getting out of the tank or am I in for another beating for insubordination?"

"Unfortunately, we don't have time for you to take another dip in the tank." Jaeko paused for a moment, dropping his customary blithe smile. "Your squad has been assigned a mission. You're shipping out at 0800."

The bottom dropped out from under Vegeta and he could feel the blood draining from his newly repaired face. It was too soon. He'd spent the last few weeks convinced they would find a way out of this hellhole before it ever came to this. None of those soft bellied incompetents were ready for a purge assignment. If he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure he was ready either. He knew it was likely hopeless, but he had to try and stall.

"We haven't completed basic training."

"I thought you said you didn't need basic training."

"I don't. But the rest of them…"

"Will be under the command of a Captain with more purge experience than anyone on this base. If they can't complete the mission, I'll know exactly who to blame."

Vegeta sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course, this would all fall on his shoulders.

"What's the mission?"

"Standard purge and process, for the most part. There's an asset on the surface that Lady Kali has asked you to retrieve personally."

"What is it?"

"You'll be briefed on it in the morning."

"What about the population?"

"Mammalian humanoid. Not much in the way of physical power but they have access to some remarkably advanced weaponry. It won't be a walk in the park."

It would have been too much to ask for their first mission to be something easy. A bug planet maybe? It was always easier to murder innocents when they didn't look like 'people'. He tried to imagine his comrades laying waste to a city of men, women, and children that looked just liked the humans of their destroyed planet. It didn't compute. They didn't have it in them.

"They're not ready. Not for a job like this. Start them off on a livestock planet, somewhere without sentient life. I'm telling you, they will crack."

"I hope that's not true, for your sake," Jaeko warned. "I hate to have to remind you but your mate will remain on Geminon while you're gone. If things go badly, I can't promise she'll be in one piece when you return."

There was no malice in his words. It wasn't a threat, just a statement of fact, a reminder of how things operated in the PTO, but the affable tone did nothing to quell the urge bubbling inside him to bust the man's skull open like an over ripe melon.

"You have nine hours before you are to report to the flight deck. I suggest you take some time to prepare them… as best you can."

* * *

Vegeta stood outside the door of the dormitory, his hand skimming the handle. He didn't want to go in. He didn't want to be the bearer of this bad news and he wasn't entirely sure why. It wasn't as if he had any personal investment in their feelings about what they were being called to do. He gave exactly zero fucks about their internal conflict over it. But, over the last several weeks, he'd begun to notice a strange phenomenon. They had started deferring to him, looking to him to make decisions, expecting him to have answers. For a while, it felt like he was finally being given a tiny fraction of the respect owed to him as a Saiyan prince, respect that he had never before received from this lot. But now that he'd been put in the position to lead them, it felt more like a burden than a birthright. He found himself caring how his actions and directives affected them. And now he had to deliver the news that their trust in him had been misplaced. He'd failed to get them out and now he would have to lead them on a mission of mass murder.

Despite his brief moment of introspection, it didn't escape Vegeta's attention how pathetic the situation was. It was beyond pitiful, him standing here in the hallway, quivering over what they were going to think of him. It was utter nonsense. He should really just put them all out of their misery, strangle them in their sleep, take Bulma, and…

The door swung open before him from the other side, revealing Tien.

"What are you doing out here?"

Vegeta realized they'd probably all sensed him hovering outside the door for the last ten minutes, like a fucking weirdo.

"Nothing," he said defensively, pushing his way past the triclops.

They all sat up in their bunks to great him, marveling at the quick work of the regeneration tank. All except Piccolo, who remained on his side facing the wall, pretending to sleep. Vegeta wasn't sure if it was guilt or anger that prevented the green man from acknowledging him but he didn't care enough to dwell on it.

"Are you alright?" Bulma jumped down from her bunk and Vegeta stepped backwards, preemptively nixing any kind of awkward display of unnecessary concern. "After what Piccolo said happened to you, I thought you might come out of the tank with your face rearranged... maybe better looking."

He smirked at her, knowing she was making light of her worry to spare him the embarrassment.

"Sorry to disappoint you. You'll have to live with my face the way it is for the foreseeable future."

"What took you do long?" Eighteen asked groggily from her spot next to Krillin.

"I was being briefed by Jaeko," he responded, wondering how he was going to broach the subject he'd been dreading in the hallway. "We're to report to the flight deck at 0800 tomorrow."

"What for? We already completed our pod piloting training," Gohan asked.

Vegeta faltered, considering what he could possibly say to prepare them for what awaited. Ultimately, he took the easy way out.

"I don't know. He didn't say."

He told himself he wasn't being a coward. He was just saving himself the headache of a half-baked, last minute escape attempt that would get them all killed.

"Well, get to sleep," Bulma said, coaxing him towards his bunk. "I'm sure you're exhausted."

He wasn't actually. He'd been asleep for the past several hours but it wasn't like he had anything better to do. He pulled off his armor and boots, not bothering to change out his jumpsuit.

As he turned and adjusted trying to find a comfortable position, Bulma sat on the edge of his bed and leaned down to place a kiss on his cheek.

"Love you. Goodnight," she whispered in his ear before closing his curtain and climbing the ladder into her own bunk.

She'd done the same thing every night for the last five years. She would kiss him chastely, profess her love, then turn over to fall asleep. When she first began this ritual, he'd found it strange. Why did she feel the need to express her affection on a nightly basis? Did she think he'd forgotten in the span of twenty-four hours?

At the time, he was still unfamiliar with the human obsession with 'love.' On Earth, the word was used to describe emotions ranging from mild fondness to burning desire and everything in between. It was jarring when he'd first become acquainted with the human dialect of Galactic Standard. Nowhere else in the universe had he witnessed the word thrown about so casually. In his early years, he would only ever hear it spoken aloud by the pitiful, terrified victims of a purge as they said goodbye to their kin and came to grips with the inevitability of their deaths. It was an expression most people might be on the receiving end of once, maybe twice in a lifetime. And yet Vegeta was told he was loved every single night and he had never returned the sentiment.

It was not that he didn't feel for the woman what the word was intended to convey. As much as it grieved him to admit, he was entirely and unendingly devoted to the little wench. He knew it hurt her when he didn't reply to her 'I love yous' in kind, though she'd gotten better at hiding it with practice. It would be so easy to just say the words in the privacy of their own bed. He could add it to the never ending list of undignified things he did for her, just to make her happy. He'd wanted to, he'd almost said it on several occasions, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. It simply went against the very core of his nature to be so effusive.

Bulma was of the opinion that his aversion to giving and receiving affection was down to his childhood, which was _admittedly_ fucked up by any standard. She genuinely believed all of his troubles could be traced back to the benign neglect he received from his father or the brutal beatings he took from Frieza. It was a nice, neat little box for her to put his various maladjustments but Vegeta saw that explanation for what it was, an excuse to place the blame for his failures at the feet of dead men.

In his own mind, he drew various lines of bullshit around why he did the things he did.

Most recently, he'd rationalized to himself that his frigidity was in Bulma's best interest. If the enemy knew of his connection to her, she would surely be used against him. But that was nonsense and he knew it. The enemy had been surveilling them for some time and seemed to know quite a bit about them. They were already using Bulma to keep him in line. Sharing a bed with her was not going to make the situation any worse than it presently was. Before he'd come up with that excuse, he'd tried to blame his own inborn prudishness for his refusal to touch her but, after weeks of celibacy, he would gladly fuck her in broad daylight on the Capsule Corp law, to an audience of her closest family and friends. The real reason he could never return the effortless affection Bulma lavished on him, and why he was keeping her at arm's length now, was far more painful than he could ever voice, even to himself. It had nothing to do with his pride or his taciturn warrior's temperament. The truth was he needed to anesthetize himself to the pain of her inevitable loss. Bulma was just too frail, too gentle, too trusting to survive in this word and he was not strong enough to protect her forever.

Vegeta was ashamed of himself for thinking this way. He knew she was an iron willed, dangerously intelligent woman and he should have more faith in her ability to take care of herself. But he also knew what monsters lurked around every corner, just waiting to snap her beautiful, delicate little neck. He knew because, at one time, he'd been one of them. He couldn't count the number of nights he'd lain awake thinking about how fragile she was and all the different ways she could be snatched away from him. In her distorted reality, people always had the best intentions, any problem could be solved with kindness, and there was no sin so grave that it couldn't be forgiven. In _his_ reality, the universe was a debased and violent place. Living creatures were, at best, indifferent to the suffering of others and, at worst, gleeful in causing it. She didn't realize she was the exception to the rule, a shining beacon in a cesspool of blood, shit, and chaos.

There was a time, back on Earth, when he had almost convinced himself that she might have been right all along. Maybe things weren't as bleak he thought. Maybe his mate and his son were not in constant danger of being snuffed out right under his nose. Maybe, when Bulma leaned in to kiss him and tell him she loved him, he could say the words back to her. But Earth was gone now. He'd been foolish to believe that paradise could last forever. He'd let himself get soft over the years and now he was paying the price. More accurately, his family was paying the price.

'Love is not a weakness.' That was the load of garbage Kakarot had consistently tried to shove down his throat before he'd gone and blown himself up. Vegeta wished the other Saiyan could be here now, if only to rub his face in just how wrong he'd been. Love most certainly was a weakness and there would be no better evidence of that fact than what was coming in the morning. Six weeks ago, if he had asked any one of the self-righteous prigs among the Z Warriors whether they would willingly purge a planet of innocent life, they would have said, unequivocally, no. They would die before they did anything of the sort. Now, he knew they would all go through with it and it was all down to love. They would murder billions of people tomorrow. They would willingly submit themselves to slavery and to the commission of unspeakable acts of evil, all to save the ones among them they cared for. He didn't judge them on that accord. He would do the same with a smile on his face and without a moment's hesitation, but he did resent them for the condemnation they'd heaped on him over the years. He wondered how long it would take them to start reveling in the sadism? Who among them would snap first? His money was on Eighteen. She already had a pension for mayhem and, once she gave in to her baser instincts, Krillin wouldn't be far behind. Maybe Tien would be next.

His dark train of thought was interrupted when he heard Bulma turn over and rustle the blankets. She always tossed and turned restlessly when he had one of his sleepless nights of turbulent introspection. He wondered sometimes if she could sense his disquiet, if he was somehow projecting his own anxiety into her dreams.

"The dinosaurs want chocolate cake," she mumbled before going back to snoring softly.

Or maybe not.

Vegeta could feel his internal clock warning him it was nearly dawn. He blinked to check the time on his scouter. It read 0527. He could expect the inbuilt alarm to start flashing behind his lids if he wasn't out of bed by 0600. He lifted himself out of his bunk and toward the showers before anyone else even stirred, finally feeling the need for sleep that had evaded him all night.

It didn't matter. He was used to pushing through the exhaustion. He never slept the night before a purge.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The morning routine went by in relative silence. It was obvious Vegeta was tense, more so than his standard level of constant anxiety, and no one wanted a run in with him. They speculated over breakfast as to what kind of training they would receive on the flight deck. This would be a good time to inform them they were being sent on their first purge but Vegeta kept quiet.

It should have been obvious something was amiss when he didn't touch his morning meal, just poked at the gritty sludge with his fork and rolled the links of mystery meat from one edge of his plate to the other. Bulma was the only one who noticed.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?"

"I'm not hungry."

He could see the alarm in her face. He felt like he should say something to her, but he didn't know what. He had this unshakable sensation of dread that this might be the last time he ever spoke to her, like she might not be here when he came back, like he might not come back at all.

"Be careful," he said, pulling on her wrist as she finished her breakfast and rose from her seat.

"Of what?"

"Of everything. You never pay enough attention to your surroundings."

"Are you alright Vegeta?" She was giving him the look she reserved for especially difficult equations. She would puzzle out what was going on soon enough, but he wouldn't be here when she did.

"Everything's fine." He stroked the underside of her wrist with his thumb before letting her go. If she wasn't sure that something was wrong before, she was now, but when she turned to confront him, he was already gone.

* * *

Vegeta was the last to arrive on the flight deck and all eyes were on him as he entered.

"How kind of you to join us Captain," Jaeko greeted disingenuously. "I've gathered from the chatter amongst your squad that they haven't been briefed on why they're here today."

"What's going on?" Krillin whispered insistently.

Jaeko was clearly pissed that he'd neglected to inform them of their first mission but Vegeta was beyond caring. The general hadn't ordered him to say anything, he'd merely suggested it. Let him deal with the crying, bargaining, and equivocating.

"As I informed Captain Vegeta last night, you will be graduating basic training early. You've been assigned a purge mission and you're shipping out in thirty minutes."

Each of them looked to him with barely contained rage and unadorned fear. Fuck them. This is exactly why he hadn't said anything last night. They would have turned on him whether he'd warned them or not. There was nothing he could do to save them from this and he didn't particularly care to, even if he could.

"Except for you," Jaeko said, pointing to Eighteen. "You're being temporarily reassigned."

Eighteen looked behind her as if he might be speaking to someone else.

"Me?"

"Yes you. I've received word that you're to be reassigned to the Research and Development department until further notice."

The color immediately drained from the android's complexion but her steely expression remained in place. Krillin, on the other hand, was far less composed and a thin line of sweat appeared on his upper lip as he tried to sputter out an objection.

"Why? She's a fighter. What… what do they want her for?"

"Couldn't tell you. That's above by clearance level," Jaeko shrugged.

Even Krillin wasn't gullible enough to believe the sudden reassignment was anything other than malicious. Fear settled across his brow as he imagined all of the different ways his wife could be maimed and tortured in the name of _science_.

For Vegeta's part, he couldn't help but feel a little relieved. He held no ill will towards the android, at least not any greater than he held for the rest of them, but her reassignment laid to rest one major wild card. Krillin. He had long served as the moral compass of the group and was the most likely to talk the rest of them into some ill-fated mutiny. But now, with his Wife remaining behind in the clutches of their captors, he was sure Krillin would fall in line.

Krillin grasped his Wife's hand and squeezed, pulling her down to press his forehead against hers.

"We can do this. Right?" Krillin said, waiting to hear his wife's affirmation.

"Right."

"We'll survive. Right?" He asked, placing a hand on her face.

"Right."

"This is all too adorable for words but, this squad is shipping out in twenty minutes and I haven't even started the briefing." Jaeko interrupted, tapping the toe of his boots impatiently. "Wrap it up."

Eighteen kissed her husband on the top of his bald head before straightening up and looking to the rest of them. She wouldn't embarrass Krillin by demanding they keep him safe, but they could see her silent plea. Gohan nodded in acknowledgement before she left the flight deck and headed towards her new assignment.

"Any more dramatic displays before we begin?" Jaeko asked and Krillin blushed under the scrutiny. "Good."

"This is planet Picon." A blue planet appeared before them like a hologram, projected through the optic nerve of their scouter eye. "It has a population of approximately nine billion. It is comprised of seventy five percent saline ocean and twenty five percent land mass. The topography is being downloaded to you now."

Vegeta felt a slight twinge in his temple and immediately saw a map of the planet in his mind's eye. It was as clear to him as if he'd been studying a three-dimensional model for months.

"The Piconese are not a ki wielding race so you will have no use for electromagnetic wave canons. They are, however, armed to the teeth with energy weapons, both artillery and small arms. Your power levels will be capped at 25,000, which should be more than enough to get the job done."

Vegeta raised his hand and Jaeko sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Question?"

"Why are we being handicapped? Why not send us in at full strength?"

"Because the targeted resources on this planet are fragile and sending you in at your full potential would be like dropping a nuclear bomb on an ant colony. Also, and try to follow me on this one, _because I fucking ordered it._ "

Vegeta made his dissatisfaction with the answer clear in his stance but knew he wouldn't get a better one. He was certain the reason they were being muzzled had nothing to do with the risk they posed to the planet's resources and everything to do with the risk they posed to the PTO.

"If anyone else has a question that begin with 'why,' kindly direct it to someone who gives a shit," Jaeko droned on, not bothering to look up from his briefing notes.

"The Piconese will be expecting you. They have been in talks with the Empire for some time and negotiations have reached a standstill. Apparently, they were not open to the offer of entering the empire as a slave race and forfeiting their planet. Go figure," he shrugged. "That means they will be concentrating their firepower in certain key areas in an attempt to protect their government and civilian population. Their Senate is holed up here."

The holographic model of the planet morphed into a bird's eye view of the planet's capital city.

"Oceanum is the seat of the planet's government and its most densely populated city. You will land in the Capital Square where the bulk of their military firepower is concentrated. Once you've leveled the city, you will split up into sectors and take out the remaining populace."

That was the kick in the teeth they'd been bracing themselves for. The order had been made in black and white. They were expected to destroy a city full of innocent people and it wouldn't stop there. They would crawl across the remarkably earthlike globe like locusts, leaving dust and ash in their wake.

"The second part of your mission is to retrieve a text known as the Verbis Aeternum."

A vision of a dusty ancient looking scroll appeared before them, followed by a pinpoint on the holographic map. "We've tracked down the location to St. Triton's Basilica, just outside the capital city. You shouldn't have any problem with the locals. The Piconese are rather superstitious and believe the location to be cursed."

The visual demonstration was of little use at this point. Most of them were too preoccupied trying choke down the first part of the mission, the part about murdering billions of men women and children.

"Why bother collecting religious texts from a race we're being sent to exterminate?" Piccolo prodded. "Who would even be left to read them?"

"Was I not clear the first time?" Jaeko huffed. "I'm not paid enough to ask 'why' and you're paid even less than I am. So don't worry your pretty little green head about it."

"Speaking of payment…" Vegeta interjected.

"As squad captain, you'll be paid five thousand credits. The rest of you will be paid three thousand upon successful completion of the mission."

"Five thousand credits for a class three purge? Are you fucking kidding me?! That's barely enough to cover my mess stipend for the next month. Ten years ago, I wouldn't even step foot in a pod for less than twenty thousand."

Every Z Warrior turned to him with a look of total revulsion. They couldn't believe he was haggling over payment at a time like this. They were judging him. They wouldn't be when they realized the food, clothing, and shelter the Empire had so graciously provided them over the past few weeks all came with a cost. Almost every credit they earned would be sucked back into the pocket of the PTO to pay back their invented 'debts'. The day would come when their bellies were empty and they had not a dime to their names. When that day came, when they stopped looking at the remains of their victims with pity and started seeing them as a viable source of sustenance, he would remind them what self-righteous cunts they'd been.

"I am so sorry Prince. Truly, I am. What can I do to make it up to you? Would you like some warm towels for your pod? Maybe some gluten free snacks for the trip?" Jaeko spit sarcastically, tilting his head in mock concern. "Why don't you make a list of your complaints and I'll be sure to relay them to Lady Kali. I can only imagine how thrilled she'll be to hear them."

"You can fuck right off with your empty threats. I know you have a budget of at least fifty thousand for this project and you're pocketing the rest for yourself. I wonder how Kali would feel about that."

Jaeko crossed his arms defensively, knowing he'd been out maneuvered.

"I want fifteen thousand credits and ten for each of them," Vegeta bargained.

"You're out of your mind if you think a squad this green is worth even half that. Eight for you, four for them and not a single credit more."

"Ten and five and or I walk into the throne room right now and tell Kali you've been skimming off the top."

Jaeko hesitated with his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed, mulling the deal over.

"Done, but for that price, this job better be flawless. It's a four day mission, including travel time. I want it done in three."

Vegeta and Jaeko shook hands to seal the compromise while the rest of the men continued to stare at them in disgust.

"You're dismissed. Your pods are prepped and ready in Bay 6," Jaeko instructed before departing.

Vegeta immediately marched across the flight deck towards their waiting pods, wasting no time looking behind him to see if the others were following.

"Hold on," Gohan said, clamping a hand on Vegeta's shoulder in an attempt to slow him down. "What was that all about? What are we going to do?"

"Shut your mouth and get in the gods damn pod," he grit through clenched teeth as he slammed the button on the side, lowering the rounded hatch.

"But you have a plan, right? We can't… I mean, we're not really going to…"

"Do you ever want to see your brother again?" Vegeta asked, not expecting an answer but knowing the question would convey exactly how little choice any of them had in what was going to happen next.

Gohan went silent and looked to Piccolo. The Namekian said nothing but gave him a reassuring pat on the back, directing him towards the next empty pod. The rest of them took their cues from the boy and made no further attempts at stalling or objecting. They each climbed into a waiting pod. Once the doors closed, they belted themselves in and performed their final flight checks, just as they'd been instructed. Vegeta activated and synchronized the communication function of their scouters and beamed his voice directly into their inner ears.

"Lift off on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

* * *

Exhaustion was Bulma's new baseline state of being. She was routinely working fourteen hour days, both at her ostensible data entry job and on her side project, trying to hack into the PTO's impenetrable top-secret files. She'd quickly lost favor with the grubby neck-beard that served as her overseer after she'd rejected his advances one too many times. Now he was watching her like a hawk, waiting for any opportunity to write her up. Considering how precarious her position was to begin with, she couldn't afford to make any mistakes. She'd even retired the scanning software she'd built and was actually manually performing the job she'd been assigned to do. It was absolutely mind numbing and somehow simultaneously grueling. It also meant she had to wait until everyone else had left for the night to start her real work.

It was well past dinner time as she dragged herself back to the barracks. Vegeta had taken to smuggling food out of the mess hall for her since she started working late. She was absolutely ravenous and even a squished, body temperature sandwich that had been crammed in his pocket for hours sounded appetizing right about now.

When she let herself into their dormitory, she was surprised to see only Eighteen and Chiaotzu waiting for her. Both of them were lying in their bunks, staring at the ceiling. Neither acknowledged her when she walked in.

"Where are the guys?" she asked, hoping for an innocuous explanation.

"Gone," Chiaotzu answered. "They were sent on a mission."

"A purge," Eighteen added, voice barely above a whisper.

Oh no. Not yet. She needed more time. If she'd just had a few more weeks, maybe months, she could have found some way to get them out. She'd been so focused on her work, so focused on her worry for Trunks and Goten, she hadn't even allowed herself to think about this eventuality. She tried to imagine it now, to picture Krillin or Yamcha or sweet Gohan killing a whole planet full people, but it was too outlandish to even conjure a mental picture.

Then she thought about Vegeta and the images came all too easily. She'd spent years trying to fill in the blanks between what she knew of his past and what he was willing to talk about. Her imagination would run wild, visualizing every horrific thing he'd ever done or that had ever been done to him. She used to tell herself that the reality couldn't be as bad as the images in her head but, now that she'd experienced a tiny fraction of what his life was like before her, she had a feeling it was actually much, much worse.

"It would have been nice to have some warning, some time to say goodbye." Eighteen opined in an accusatory tone. "Apparently Vegeta knew and didn't think it was important enough to tell us."

Bulma recalled Vegeta's odd behavior that morning and realized he must have been trying to tell her in his own dysfunctional, nonverbal way. She wanted to be angry with him for withholding such vital information, but she knew him too well to hold it against him. Vegeta was shit at dealing with problems that couldn't be solved with violence. Avoidance was his coping mechanism of choice.

"I'm sure he had his reasons," Bulma responded simply, knowing she could never explain Vegeta to anyone who didn't know him the way she did.

"Someday you're going to run out of excuses to make for him," Chiaotzu grumbled, unconvinced.

"Why aren't you with them?" she asked Eighteen.

"They decided I'm more useful as a lab rat than a soldier," she responded.

Now looking at her, Bulma noticed small bruises and up and down the android's pale arms and recognized them as injection sites. She could see a white square bandage taped below her navel where her shirt rode up. It was in Bulma's nature to want to comfort the other woman, to ask her what they'd done to her, but she knew Eighteen would not be receptive.

"Oh Kami, this is all my fault," Bulma said, burying her face in her hands. "I should have been able to crack that code by now. I should have found a way out of here before this happened."

She was half hoping they would argue with her, tell her she was doing her best and it wasn't her fault, but both Eighteen and Chiaotzu stayed silent.

Bulma sighed heavily, realizing neither one of them was in the mood to console her or each other. She trailed into the bathroom to get ready for bed and when she came out, Eighteen and Chiaotzu were already asleep, or at least pretending to be. She grasped the rungs of the ladder into her bunk, preparing to haul herself up, but paused before lifting her foot onto the first step. Instead, she laid down in Vegeta's bed and wrapped his blanket around herself. She buried her face in his pillow and inhaled, imaging his face with the familiar smell of him. Again, unbidden images of what he might be doing, who he might be killing, assaulted her mind's eye. She pushed back against them by remembering the way his scowl would soften into a smile when he watched Trunks fly around the back yard or when he would watch her dress in the morning. That was the Vegeta she knew. She could only hope that was the Vegeta that returned to her.

* * *

Vegeta stared, glossy eyed, out of his pod window as he struggled to shake off the effects of the hyper sleep drugs. They'd reached their destination and were now orbiting Picon. The planet looked purple through the red tint of the glass and the sight of it brought a strong sense of déjà vu. It was only a few years ago he'd found himself orbiting a violet planet just like this one. Only when he set foot on solid ground did he realized how vividly blue everything was. He remembered how vibrant the sky appeared, how the whole world seemed to glow. He'd never been closer to total freedom than the first time he laid eyed on the Earth. It didn't last long. When he left, only a few hours later, the beautiful gleaming blue marble was replaced with a brackish muddy ball of shit that he swore he would never return to again. Now, there was very little he wouldn't do just to go back to that mudball one more time.

"Guys?" Vegeta heard Krillin's voice crackling in his ear through the scouter. "Is anyone else there?"

"I'm here." "Me too." "Who is that?"

"Shut up all of you. I'm taking roll call." One by one, Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin, Tien, and Yamcha each confirmed their presence.

"Alright, you all heard the briefing. We're landing in the city center. We can expect to be fired on as soon as we breach the atmosphere. You won't have any recovery time between landing and combat so be ready. We stay together until the city center is neutralized and then spread out to level the rest of the city. First priority is government buildings, then media…"

"Wait. Just wait a minute," Gohan interjected. "We need to talk about this. We're not actually going to do this, right?"

"Oh, we're not? And what do you suggest we do instead?"

"I don't know! We run? We turn around and go back? All I know is we can't kill all these people!"

"These people are dead no matter what we do, and I am NOT going to die with them."

"So what if they kill us?" Gohan countered. "Billions of lives are worth a lot more in the grand scheme of things than just us six."

"There are people back on Geminon that are relying on us not to fuck up. Trunks and Bulma are still…"

"You're so full of shit Vegeta!" Tien interjected. "Don't pretend like you give a damn about Bulma and Trunks! This is just a payday to you! You made that clear."

"I hate to break it to you, but this is your livelihood now, asshole. And, by the way, that's the last time I negotiate for you ingrates. Next time, I'll let you all starve."

"Come on, Tien. Let's not set the bar too high for him. You can't expect him to react to this like a normal, decent person." The patronizing tone in Yamcha's voice made Vegeta want to reach through the scouter link and choke the life out of him. "Who knows how many planets he's destroyed before this one. For him, this is just another Tuesday."

"Vegeta, we're not doing this," Gohan grumbled with an uncharacteristic conviction in his tone. "I won't let you do this."

Vegeta sighed and attempted to calm his frayed nerves. He was losing them. If Gohan was actively working against him, the rest would revolt along with him. He would have to convince the boy, somehow, if they were going to live through this.

"If we don't complete this purge, they'll just send another squad to do it and, I can promise you, whoever they send to finish the job will take the words 'rape and pillage' absolutely literally. These people are lucky it's us and not some of the other sadistic freaks who float around the PTO. At the very least, we'll make it as quick and painless as possible."

"I don't care. I'm not going to participate in…"

"Gohan," Piccolo's low baritone came across the line and Gohan went silent, as if he was holding his breath. "I know you're scared. But you need to be strong, for Goten. He's counting on us right now."

There was a heavy pause before Gohan responded in a barely audible whisper. "… I don't think I can do it." The certainty in his voice was gone.

"You can. I have faith in you."

"But… but what would my dad think?" No one needed to see Gohan to know that tears were streaming down his face.

"I knew your father and I know he would understand. If he were here, he would tell you to do whatever you had to do to survive and to protect your bother."

Vegeta had to choke back a sarcastic snort. If Kakarot were here, he would have challenged Kali on their very first day and likely gotten them all killed in the process. The safety and wellbeing of others had never ranked very high on the man's list of priorities. Gohan, in particular, had consistently come in second to a good fight or his next meal. But the truth wasn't important now. If Gohan and the rest of them wanted to use some idealized memory to sooth their conscience, then so be it.

"Okay," was the boy's only reply but his was consent enough to tamp out any remaining subversion in the group.

"We're all proud of you Gohan and we'll all be there with you." Krillin added solemnly.

There was a moment of silence and, before any other objections could be raised, Vegeta initiated the landing sequence for all six pods.

"Engage automatic evasive maneuvers protocol and be ready to take manual control if necessary." The adrenaline was beginning to set in and the sound of heavy breathing reverberated in the otherwise silent blackness.

"Descent in five, four, three…" Vegeta could feel his heartbeat speeding up and his palms grew sweaty under his gloves. He'd done this more times than he could ever hope to recall but he still got nervous before every landing.

"Two, one," and then the pods descended like a bowling ball dropped from the top of a sky scraper.

The force reminded him of hanging upside down in the GR at 300 Gs. He had to tighten the straps of his harness when they entered the atmosphere to avoid being tossed around the interior of the pod. As they approached, he could see pinpricks of light originating from the surface but it only took seconds for the inconspicuous specks to morph into beams of artificial ki, hurtling directly at them. His pod jolted forward, then backward, right, then left to evade the planet's defensive attack. His hand hovered over the manual overrise button as streaks of light shot past him, far too close for comfort.

The ground careered ever closer and he began to see the infrastructure of the capital come into focus. The white marble of the neoclassic government buildings turned blue and red with the flashing sirens warning citizens to escape while they still could. Tiny specs scurried across the streets, fleeing the center of the city in every direction. Closer and closer they sped until he could see the faces of the soldiers manning the heavy artillery canons. And then there was nothing but dirt as the pod barreled into the earth, spraying crushed asphalt and soil into the air.

When he finally came to a jarring stop, he couldn't tell which way was up but there was no time to recover from the whiplash inducing landing. Before the smoke even cleared from the crater, they were on him. The blast of their ki guns ricocheting off the exterior of the pod, leaving dents in the metal and cracks in the glass. He needed to get out of this hole before they destroyed his only vehicle off this rock. He grabbed the manual control stick, swiveled the pod until it faced the sky, and kicked the emergency exit lever. Dozens of soldiers stood at the edge of the crater with guns trained right between his eyes but they were too slow. His skin began to prickle and glow before he even forced himself out of the half-opened hatch. Light burst from his fingertips and screaming, burning bodies fell into the hole as he burst out.

Vegeta quickly surveyed his surroundings, noting the location of the enemy targets as well as the landing position of the other pods. The Z warriors hovered over the flightless Picon soldiers, dodging blasts, but none returned fire.

"Fire on the heavy artillery!" Vegeta shouted over the clamor and buzz of passing energy rounds. "Targets at three and six o'clock!"

But the order was ignored. They were panicking. Of course, they were. This was war and they were all useless outside of a tournament ring or a one on one skirmish. They were so overwhelmed they'd forgotten that, even in their weakened state, they could wipe out an entire city block with little to no effort.

"Stay together! Back to back!" Vegeta bellowed and, this time, they all rushed into formation, each man tightly packed shoulder to shoulder.

It was an order he wouldn't have given to a seasoned squad. The formation broke all the rules. In conventional combat, you never gave the enemy a larger target, never stayed in one spot long enough for them to take aim. But here and now the rules didn't apply. These men needed to know this was life and death, this was kill or be killed.

Energy blasts struck them at every direction. They struggled to dodge and volley them back but there were too many. Yamcha was the first to suffer a major injury, taking a blast to the gut, leaving him bloody and winded. Krillin was next and nearly dropped out of the sky when he was hit on the left side of his face.

"Return fire!" Vegeta ordered and began to charge an attack. Even at his diminished capacity, he could feel the ecstatic swell of energy rising out of his core and through his limbs. He wasn't like the rest of them. He couldn't deny himself the pleasure of having this lethal force at his fingertips again after so long. This was what he was bread for, what he was born to do. It was so familiar… and yet he hesitated.

He could hear Gohan behind him calling out a kamehameha wave and Krillin unleashing a kienzan. One by one each of them loosed an attack out into the city, firing blindly past the throng of soldiers that had closed in around them. He wavered until it was only him still holding that blue orb of light. He held it so long that it started to scorch the palms of his gloved hands. And finally, when he couldn't contain the energy a second longer, he let it go with a tortured scream.

Smoke and debris billowed around them in clouds so thick they had to squint their eyes and breath through their cupped hands. It took a few minutes but when the dust settled, and the incinerated remains of their enemies stopped smoldering, they could finally appreciate the devastation.

There was nothing left for miles, as far as the eye could see. Every building, every structure, every last living sole had been reduced to black char and finely filtered ash. The air around them was still, but for the far off screams and rumblings of riot and chaos.

"Spread out." Vegeta ordered. "Destroy the rest."

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! The next one might be a bit delayed as I'm also working on something for TPTH Smutfest. As always, please please please leave a comment. It is so much easier to write when I know someone else is reading this and I'm not just screaming into the void.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"Trunks, you're not eating your dinner."

Watery blue eyes met stormy grey with lethal intensity.

"I'm. Not. Hungry," the boy grit through a mouth full of baby teeth, even as his stomach rumbled and betrayed him. He slouched in his oversized chair with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, a full plate of untouched food in front of him. Goten sat beside him, his plate licked clean, looking longingly towards the serving platers piled high with savory fares. He was still hungry but was unwilling to break solidarity with his best and only friend to ask for seconds.

"I know that's not true. You haven't eaten anything since yesterday," Mal cajoled. His voice carried across the enormous empty dining room to the boys sitting all the way at the other end of the extravagantly long table.

"I don't want your food. I want to go home." Trunks said dejectedly as he poked at his meal with his unused fork.

"This is your home."

"No, it's not! My mom and dad don't live here so it's not my home."

Mal set his fork onto his plate and steepled his long fingers under his nose.

"We've talked about this, Trunks. Your Mother and Father gave you to me to take care of."

"I don't believe you," his small fists were balled next to him on the table and shook with barely contained rage.

"I know you don't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe it either when my parents gave my sister and I away but, sometimes…"

"Shut up!" Trunks plate flew across the room and crashed against the opposite wall. "You're a liar! They didn't give me away!"

Goten startled at the outburst and looked to the end of the table fearfully. Surely, Trunks would be punished for making such a mess, but Mal didn't stir.

"Then why are you still here?" Mal asked. There was no anger or frustration detectable in his voice, only sympathy. "Why haven't they come to get you?"

Trunks remained silent and sheepishly swung his legs under the table. He had no answer to that question. Mal waved to the servants to clean the shattered porcelain off of the floor and serve Trunks another plate.

"Goten, there's dessert over here, if you'd like some." he stated nonchalantly before biting into a sugar dusted pastry.

Goten's big brown eyes opened wide as he observed the plates of various confections laid out at the other end of the table. Trunks glared at his friend in warning, but the siren song of dessert was too powerful to ignore.

"Don't do it," Trunks said, grabbing hold of Goten's wrist as he dropped out of his chair. "My mom and dad are coming for us. Gohan and Piccolo and the rest of them too. They'll be here soon."

Goten hesitated for a moment but pulled his hand out of Trunk's grasp.

"Maybe. But I'm hungry now."

The younger boy scuttled across the room and pulled out a chair next to their captor… or guardian, he wasn't quite sure. Mal lifted him into the seat and served him a Saiyan sized potion of cake while Trunks reluctantly look a few bites of his second plate of dinner.

* * *

Vegeta hung in the sky above a small hamlet, observing the flurry of active panic below him. He hovered close enough to see his victims scurrying about like ants on a hill but far enough away to maintain a seemly level of detachment. Some made a futile attempt to find shelter, some made a run for it, but some just stared at him, necks craned and mouths gaping open to the sky. He felt the roar of the crowd when he brought his hands together to shape a bright blue ball of crackling energy. He held on to it, waiting until everything went still. There was always a moment, a few seconds before the end, when the pandemonium would fade out into silence. Much like a small animal that knows it's been cornered by a predator, they would freeze and quiver in place, as if he might lose track of them if they could just stay still and quiet. When he finally took aim and fired, there was no screaming, no pleas for mercy, just muted trembling fear and acceptance of the inevitable. It was over in a matter of seconds and all that remained below him was a scorched swath or earth.

He observed the destruction from above and felt… nothing. It was a familiar, vacant sensation, like waking up from a long sleep. It wasn't how he'd expected to feel, and it wasn't how he'd started the job. He'd initially emerged from his pod in a conflagration of fury. By the time they'd demolished the first city and split into sectors, he was smoldering with tacit rage. It had simmered to an unfocused animosity with every city, suburb, town and village he destroyed until there was nothing left but an empty, nauseous pit in his stomach.

Before it had all started, as they'd hurtled towards the surface of the planet, he'd worried he might feel something resembling guilt. After the debacle in orbit, he'd experienced a moment of doubt. He thought that, when the time came, he might not have it in him to do what needed to be done. Maybe he'd lived too long on a peaceful planet and had been infected by the Earthling's guileless sense of morality. For a split second, as he hovered above the capital, he'd hesitated to look into the throng of civilians swarming beneath him for fear of seeing Bulma and Trunks' faces looking back at him. But, in the end, if he'd grown a soul during his time on Earth, it hadn't made itself known. He'd executed the job without much thought or compunction.

He struggled to remember a time in his life before he'd been so middling and indifferent to death en mass. During his first few years of servitude under Frieza, he'd actually reveled in it. He'd been wild, nigh uncontrollable then. He would work himself up into a manic state before each mission. There was no stopping him once he got started. He could annihilate entire hemispheres within hours, wipe whole cities out with a single strike. An almost bodily euphoria washed over him when he held the frenzied frothing mob in the palm of his hand just before crushing them into dust. Every kill held a sense of elation. He would even volunteer for cleanup duty, finding stragglers out in the countryside who had survived the destruction of larger population hubs. It was a job most soldiers dreaded because it meant the killing was up close and personal, but he took pleasure in toying with his victims, finding ever more gruesome ways to murder. It was during these early years that he had built his reputation as a natural born killer. Stories of Frieza's feral child bounded across the universe. Rumors spread that he was a hell spawn weaned on the blood of the innocent or a demon babe summoned by the superstitious, arcane Saiyans as their planet crumbled beneath their feet.

In truth, he simply had no other outlet for his rage. He was powerless to take it out on anyone who was actually responsible for torturing or humiliating him, but he could take it out on the sniveling, mewling population of whatever planet he'd been sent to purge. Every time he loosed a ki ball into a crowd he imagined they were responsible for the destruction of his race. When he eviscerated some helpless noncombatant, he would superimpose Frieza or Zarbon or Dadoria's face over theirs in his mind's eye and, in that moment, he felt powerful.

In time, he'd learned to control his impulse to destroy, mostly because he'd been nearly beaten to death on several occasions for destroying valuable planetary resources in a blind rage. But time and convention also played a part. After years of the same routine, day in and day out, he eventually went numb. Purges lost their cathartic significance and became a chore. That's what this was, a boring exercise in repetition to be completed as quickly as possible.

He was nearly finished with his sector. He'd cleared every population dense zone and swept the rural areas. All that was left was to search for survivors in the rubble of this last little township. He sensed a few waning ki signatures towards the outskirts, likely already wounded. He used his scouter to pinpoint the targets before descending from the sky. He didn't want to get any closer than necessary but, after a full day of launching long distance attacks, and with a cap on his ki, he was running on fumes. He had no desire to finish them off by hand if a weak or misplaced blast left them half alive. It was times like this that he missed having Nappa and Raditz around to do this kind of grunt work.

From this distance he could see them clearly. They looked more human than Saiyan. He could see them huddled together in the remains of a concrete bunker. There was an old man that looked a little like his father in law, trapped under concrete rubble and rebar. A woman huddled over him, struggling to shift the debris off of him. Another woman cowered in a corner cradling a child.

"Please, just leave us alone! Just let us go!" the woman with the child plead.

He could do that. They'd eventually be picked off by the terraforming droids. Or maybe they'd get lucky and survive long enough to be enslaved by the new occupants of the planet until they succumbed to hunger or disease. They might even hit the jackpot and find a functioning ship to get them off of this rock, though any vessel originating from a purged planet would be denied docking access within the empire. Eventually they would run out of fuel and float through space until their food, water, or oxygen ran out. But really, what did it matter to him how they met their end. He was exhausted and could just as easily leave them to whatever grim fate awaited them.

"Please."

He charged what little energy he had left in the tip of his finger and they screamed, clawing at the walls as it barreled towards them. He felt when their life force flickered out and turned away before the dust settled, not caring to see the charred bodies left behind.

* * *

Vegeta was the last to arrive back at base camp. He'd done cursory sweep of each sector, checking for any obvious signs of life. There was nothing but a few scattered, weak ki signatures, probably wildlife, encroaching into the now empty cities. They'd all done their duty. It was a small miracle, but they'd managed to complete this mission without any major cataclysms.

They'd set up for the night in a particularly devastated portion of the northeast quadrant. The temperature had dropped sharply when the sun set and they'd taken shelter in the hollowed out remains of an office building. Krillin was trying build a fire using what little flammable material had survived the raging inferno that passed through earlier in the day.

"Some of this stuff looks really important," he noted, as he pulled documents from a half melted filing cabinet, setting a few sheets ablaze with the tip of his finger and resting them on top of some shards of wooden furniture. "I guess it's stupid but I kind of feel bad for burning it."

Tien took the papers from Krillin and read the fine print. "I'm pretty sure… Gaius Marrius isn't going to need a certified copy of his tax returns any time soon," he said, tossing them into the growing fire.

Dark humor. That was a step in the right direction. They were starting to dissociate and develop some 'unhealthy coping mechanisms', as Bulma might call it. They would need them if they were going to survive this lifestyle and keep their sanity intact. When he'd first arrived back to their rallying point, they were sitting around, staring into space, tumbling down a black hole of shell shock and self pity. He'd given them small tasks to complete to get their minds off of the events of the day. It was obviously helping.

Eventually, Krillin got the fire going high enough to heat their ration packs, which were meager to say the least, hardly enough to sate a human appetite let alone the Saiyans among them. He'd sent Piccolo, Gohan, and Yamcha to forage for something to supplement their meal but was not hopeful that they'd find much of anything. When the trio arrived back at camp, they dumped their unimpressive haul at his feet next to the fire.

"There wasn't much out there but we were able to find a vending machine with some stuff in it that was still edible," Gohan said as he divvied out a few bags of chips and cans of fizzy drinks. "No candy though. It was all melted."

"It's better than this slop," Krillin complained as he pulled their food stuffs off of the fire, cursing and shaking his singed fingertips.

"Do you think what the sergeant said is true? You think there's ground up people in these things?" Yamcha asked, peeling back the aluminum lid on the heated tray and poking at the gelatinous mound with his finger.

"Nah. I'm sure he was just yanking our chains." Krillin said, though he eyed his own meal with a fair amount of suspicion.

"You want yours Piccolo?" Gohan offered, holding out one of the warm packs.

Piccolo shook his head and grimaced as he sipped on a carbonated beverage, obviously unused to the sweet flavor. "You have it," he insisted.

"Man, my mom would be beside herself if she knew I was eating this junk for dinner," Gohan signed with a smile, though his voice shook with unspoken emotion.

"She sure would," Krillin chimed in. "If Chichi were here, I bet she'd have a six course gourmet meal whipped up out of thin air."

"And if your dad was here? Forget it," Yamcha added. "He'd have wolfed down all of our dinners by now and be scouring the solar system for some dumplings and a dino steak."

Gohan continued to smile and laughed mechanically at their attempts at levity but didn't look up from his second helping of rations.

"Hey Gohan, remember that time you, me, and your dad went fishing out at the lake?" Krillin reminisced, determined to lift mood, even just a little. "He ate all the food your mom packed before we even put our lines in the water and we didn't catch anything on that trip but a couple of guppies. He was too scared of Chichi to go back home and ask her for another picnic basket so he instant transmissioned all the way to West City and came back with about fifty pizza boxes."

"Yeah, and half of them were already empty." Gohan laughed genuinely this time. "He even ate the pineapple ones. Who puts pineapple on pizza?"

Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and even Piccolo smiled at the memory of Goku's bottomless stomach. It had been a long time since they had reminisced about their departed friend, as the grief associated with his loss still seemed so fresh.

"When was the last time you heard from him? Does King Ki let him check in with you every now and then?" Yamcha asked.

"It's been a while. Not since before Goten was born." Gohan responded, his tone deflating again. "The last time I talked to him, he said he was training for a tournament in the other world. You know how he gets… distracted."

"Maybe he'll check in on us soon. He might know some way to help us out," Yamcha offered hopefully.

"Yeah, maybe." But Gohan didn't sound so optimistic.

They finished eating in relative silence. It was decided they would sleep in shifts, just in case some survivors stumbled upon them in the night. Piccolo volunteered for the first shift. The night air was frigid, but the concrete floor still held some heat from the blaze that had passed through the city earlier in the day. They rolled out their cots and Krillin threw the remaining wood on the waning fire, stoking it to keep it going for a few more minutes but it soon burned down to a pile of glowing embers and, by that time, most of them were asleep.

Vegeta, predictably, remained wide awake. He leaned his back against a fallen steel beam and stretched his legs out towards the still warm ashes of the fire. He was bone tired but couldn't bring himself to shut his eyes. He lay there, for what felt like hours, gazing up through the miasma of ash and pulverized concrete that still hung in the night sky.

"Why did we even bother taking shifts if you're just going stay up all night anyway?" Piccolo interjected into the silence. Surprisingly, his tone was bordering on jovial. Well, as jovial as Piccolo was capable of, which was odd considering the last time they'd spoken, they'd been mercilessly beating the shit out of each other. He guessed this was the Namekian's attempt at a peace offering after nearly caving his face in. Though Vegeta was a renowned grudge holder, he decided against turning his nose up at the gesture. Piccolo was the only one out of this pack of morons he could even half tolerate.

"I'm your superior officer and, if I'm going to be exhausted and miserable, so are all of you." Vegeta responded. He kept his voice low to avoid waking the other four men who slept remarkably soundly, considering they'd just committed their first genocide. "I thought a guilty conscience was supposed to cause insomnia."

"There's no reason to feel guilty. It's not like we had a choice in any of this." Piccolo responded in a gravely half whisper. "They did what they had to do."

"I suppose they did. Though, it was touch and go there in the beginning. I thought I was going to have an insurrection on my hands." Vegeta gesticulated towards Gohan, recalling how badly he'd wanted to beat some sense into the boy this morning.

"He's a good kid. He was just scared." Piccolo paused as Gohan kicked and tossed fitfully in his sleep. "He worries that Goku would be disappointed in him."

Vegeta suspected that, on some level, it must gall Piccolo that Gohan still held his father in such high esteem. Kakarot had been gone for the majority of the kid's life, thrown him to Cell on a hope and a prayer that he'd survive and save them all, declined to return to the world of the living and consequently abandoned him and his pregnant mother. And yet, he still cared about earning the dead man's approval and venerated him as some bastion of moral authority.

"We both know that Kakarot was a sanctimonious ass but, if it makes the boy feel better to think his daddy is proud of him, then tell him whatever he needs to hear. But he should know that, if he ever wants to see his brother alive again, he won't pull another stunt like that again."

Piccolo looked away and his face went stony. They hadn't talked about the boys in weeks. The subject was far too painful and the gut churning guilt Vegeta felt for failing to find his son only grew worse with every day that passed. Until now, he'd just accepted the burden was his alone to bear. He hadn't shared it with anyone, not even Bulma. But he could see now that Piccolo was carrying around his own shame at his inability to protect his youngest ward.

"Do you think … do you think they're still alive," Piccolo wavered, unsure whether he wanted to hear the answer.

"I know they are," Vegeta answered. He could see the other man relax a bit, though he hadn't meant his assurance to be a comfort. He was sure they were alive, only because they were too useful to kill. Under the circumstances, alive was hardly equivalent to safe. Vegeta wasn't even sure if it was preferable to death.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Piccolo inquired and Vegeta was glad for the change of subject.

"We have to ship out by no later than 0800 tomorrow if we're going to get back to Geminon in time to meet our deadline. I still have to find that damn scroll."

"What do you think it is? What does Kali want with it?"

"Who the fuck knows. Frieza used to send us all over the universe chasing down mystical knick-knacks. From what I've seen so far, this _Kali_ , girl has ripped more than a few pages out of his book."

"How do we know that she's even a girl at all?"

Vegeta looked confused and hesitantly raised his hands to cup the air around his chest.

"No, I mean how do we know that she is as she appears to be." Piccolo elaborated, rolling his eyes. "If she's delving into magic, she could be a thousand year old slug demon for all we know."

It was a fair point and, the more Vegeta considered it, the more sense it made. Not the part about her being a slug demon, that was ridiculous, but it was entirely possible that Kali was much older than she appeared. She looked to be a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, but there were plenty of species throughout the universe with atypical aging cycles, Saiyans being a perfect example. There were even some beings that lived well beyond the average hundred years or so of a typical carbon based life form. The filthy lizard race that Frieza haled from had a life span of about five centuries. Kali's home planet could have been destroyed generations before the Saiyans and the Colds ever crossed paths. It explained how such a powerful being could have come from seemingly nowhere to seize power after Frieza's death. She could have been lurking in the shadows all along, with no one left alive to remember her.

"She could be older than she looks," Vegeta speculated. "But her power is… strange. Her ki and her body don't fit together, like the energy was forced into a space it doesn't belong."

"Her power is supernatural," Piccolo concurred. "She's borrowing from divine magic, or stealing more likely. Her aura is mortal but there's only one thing standing between her and godhood. I guess we know what she wanted with the dragon balls."

"Immortality, very original," Vegeta snorted.

Piccolo opened his mouth as if to say something but, hesitated, thinking better of it, before changing his mind again. "Maybe we shouldn't complete the second part of the mission."

Vegeta glared at the Namekian and clicked his teeth in frustration. "I thought we'd moved past this. We don't have a choice."

"We didn't have a choice about purging this planet. These people were doomed no matter what we did but, if Kali achieves immortality, there won't be anywhere in existence that's safe from her."

"I promise you, she's not going to find what she's looking for here. I told you, Frieza scoured the universe for the answer to immortality. Everything he found turned out to be bullshit. The only thing that ever performed as advertised were the dragon balls."

Piccolo shook his head and sighed. "There are forces at work in this universe that are beyond any of our comprehension and, unfortunately, it takes very little skill or effort to tap into them. The Namekians did it when they created the dragon balls. Who knows what other races exist out there who have done the same."

"If these people had access to magic that powerful, they would have used it to save themselves."

It was an answer that seemed to satisfy the Namekian, though the conversation petered out after that. They sat in weirdly companionable silence for a while longer. When Piccolo's shift ended, Vegeta took the opportunity to lay back down and pretend to be asleep, having no desire to be drawn into conversation with any of the other men. He spent the remainder of the night in that restless in between state, unsure whether he was awake or dreaming, and every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was a mirror image of his own face in shades of lavender.

* * *

Bulma struggled to keep her eyes open. She blinked few times and stretched her back in her seat, forcing herself to concentrate of the screen in front of her. She had risked resuming her hacking project during business hours and was manually examining each one of the millions of lines of code that comprised the PTO network security system. It was a job she expected to take the remainder of her natural born life.

The code was intentionally repetitive and needlessly complex, meant to deter anyone stupid or crazy enough to attempt what she was doing. She swore she'd read the same line at least a thousand times. The only way she knew she was making any progress at all was the click of the mouse every few seconds, causing an infinitesimal shift in the content of the screen.

 _./mf –in –scrip –srcnetmask –destport 80 –proto TCP –action BLOCK_

 _./mf –in –scrip –srcnetmask –destport 80 –proto TCP –action BLOCK_

 _./mf –in –scrip –srcnetmask –destport 80 –proto TCP –action UNBLOCK_

… UNBLOCK

Wait… holy shit… holy shit it couldn't be. It was right there. It was hidden from every single program she'd written to find it but, there it was, her back door in. It was hiding in plain sight among millions and millions of monotonous lines of code. She had to slap a hand over her mouth the stifle the stunned laughter that threatened to bubble out of her. She only wasted a few moments silently celebrating and congratulating herself before getting to work. It only took a few minutes and she was in. After all that pain and frustration, it had turned out to be remarkably easy.

Once she was past the firewall, she was inundated with data, file upon file upon file of top secret, potentially lethal information, all at her fingertips. It was a struggle not to fall into the rabbit hole of her own curiosity, but she had a job to do and potentially very limited time to do it. There was no telling how long it would take for them to figure out that the system had been breached and to shut the whole thing down. She searched the database for anything pertaining to scouter chips or ki manipulation and found what she was looking for in an unnamed file. When she opened the documents inside, she nearly squealed. Access information and master override codes to every scouter chip registered to the PTO. She quickly scanned for her own name, Vegeta, and the rest of her friends, wrote down the corresponding information on a piece of scrap paper, and surreptitiously hid the folded up note in her bra.

Her next task was to search for any information that would lead her to Trunks and Goten. Their names were not listed in the scouter database and a search for them within the restricted files came up empty. She tried other searching terms, last names, parent's names, but she found nothing. She'd almost run out of options when she typed 'Saiyan' into the search field. It led her to a file titled Project Bunker. She clicked on it, but nothing happened. She tried again, and again, but the file wouldn't open. She reasoned there must be some secondary security on this particular file. She tried to right click on it and nearly jumped out of her seat when her screen began flashing red. She looked around her to make sure no one had noticed and, when she looked back, there was a pixilated skull and cross bones staring back at her.

Bulma panicked. She reached behind her screen, yanked the power cord, and pushed the keyboard all the way to the other side of her desk. She stared at the screen, half expecting it to turn back on and start blaring a siren, alerting everyone that she'd just hacked the PTO. She did her best to reassure herself of every precaution she'd taken to cover her tracks, including hiding her IP address and routing her network connection through several different computers. There was no way they would be able to identify her.

She took another look around her, just to ensure that no one had noticed her momentary anxiety attack, when she noticed a stir towards the back of the room. She slowly stood from her desk, feigning a sore back as she leaned to get a better look. There were soldiers streaming in, shuffling single file down the row of desks, headed right for her. Her heart began pounding in her chest, faster than it was before, faster than it ever had in her life. She sat back down in her seat and remained totally still, waiting to be surrounded, handcuffed, detained. Her vision began to swim and she struggled to control her breathing, to act natural, as if she wasn't about to be black bagged.

She made eye contact with the soldier nearest to her and was startled when he passed by her without a second look. The entire line passed her without acknowledgement and she remained in her seat, too afraid to turn around to see what was happening behind her.

"What's going on?"

"Stand up."

"I didn't do anything. What did I do?"

A man was carted past her and she could see the terror and confusion in his face. He couldn't figure out why this was happening to him, but Bulma knew. She'd routed her network connection through every computer at every desk she'd been assigned since arriving here. Every night she tossed her capsulized desk into a bin for one of her coworkers to pick up the next day, none the wiser that they would be complicit in her covert work. That man had been unlucky enough to select the workstation she'd used the previous day, the last point of access that her hacking could be traced to.

She felt like she might wretch as she watched him struggle against the grip of the soldiers, pleading to anyone that would listen that he hadn't done anything wrong. He was carried out of the main entrance, there was a muffled 'bang' and a wet splat as red washed the windows of the swinging double doors. Bulma lowered her head into her hands and let out a silent sob.

"Ma'am"

Bulma felt a large hand grip her shoulder and she turned around to see another soldier looming over her.

"We need you to come with us."

* * *

A/N: If you don't follow me on Tumblr, you might not have seen the gorgeous sketch I shared a few days ago. I commissioned Rutbisbe to create some art for this story and she was kind enough to sketch out two scenes for me. The scene that was ultimately chosen for the commission is from Chapter 9 and you'll get to see it in a few weeks. The other sketch is from Chapter 2 and you can see it here (If you're reading this on FF.N, my Tumblr info is in my profile).

Also, you might have noticed that there is some fancy coding in this chapter. I literally have no idea what it means or what I'm doing. So if you comment and tell me the it's wrong or doesn't make sense, I'll just agree with you.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: You may have noticed that the rating for this story had changed from T to M. This chapter contains some pretty graphic violence and sexual descriptions. If that's not something you're comfortable reading, please feel free to skip this chapter. I will post a recap in Chapter 10. For those of you soldiering on, you may notice that this chapter reads a little smoother and has less errors. I would like to thank my brand new Beta bitchytimemachine for taking the time to edit this for me. This story will be infinitely more readable due to her efforts!

 **Chapter 9**

The lingering lethargy of stasis sleep still clouded Vegeta's senses as his pod prepared for landing on New Geminon. The relief he'd felt upon opening his eyes and hearing the mechanical hum of the autopilot coming to life was almost overwhelming. They'd made it. After an almost catastrophic non-start, the job had gone off without a hitch.

As he stretched and entered his landing codes, he looked down at the object lying in his lap with unease. The scroll he'd been tasked with collecting for Kali was, for lack of a better word, creepy. When he'd first brought it back to camp, Piccolo had immediately regarded it with suspicion. The rest of the men refused to even go near it so Vegeta had been forced to spend the trip back with it in his pod. He'd never considered himself to be an overly superstitious man, but he couldn't deny the thing held a particularly ominous aura.

On the morning the mission's second day, he'd returned to the capital city to find the scroll where Jaeko had instructed. The temple was reduced to dust, but even without the ancient architecture, the site still felt foreboding. The shadow of the silent, decimated city in the distance only added to the sinister atmosphere. He could see why the former locals might believe such a place to be haunted.

After some digging, he found the artifact buried below a pile of rubble. The body of a man in bloody religious vestments clung to the scroll and huddled over it, as if to protect it from the destruction that rained down from above. Vegeta reached under the corpse and nearly jumped when it suddenly grabbed him by the wrist.

"You must not let her have it," the man insisted through a bloody, gurgling gasp. "Destroy it, if you must, but do not let it fall into the hands of The Beast." The man took a few more shallow, labored breaths before going still again, for good this time.

Vegeta collected what he'd come for and spent the time it took to get back to camp trying to shake off the eerie encounter. He'd been unsuccessful thus far and just wanted to hand the damn thing off to someone else already. The craft came in for a controlled landing on the flight deck and his heel tapped rapidly as the hatch hissed open. He unfastened his harness and nearly leapt out of his seat.

Jaeko stood just outside the landing bay, waiting for them and, as Vegeta approached, he noticed the man looked like someone had put his face through a brick wall. One of his eyes was ringed in purple and his lower lip was swollen and split down the middle.

"What happened to you?" Vegeta asked as he handed over the scroll, not attempting to hide the slight tinge of malicious glee in his voice.

"You fucked up, Prince." He responded, regarding Vegeta with contempt.

"You're full of shit. The job was perfect. Don't think you're going to get off paying less than what we agreed."

"Kali wants an audience with you, all of you, tonight. Right now."

Vegeta felt his heart jump to the back of his throat and could hear the frantic whispers of the other men as they approached from behind. There could be no innocuous explanation for why she would want to speak to them personally at this time of night.

"Why?"

"If you don't know then I've obviously overestimated your will to survive."

"So, you're going to make me guess?"

"I'll let Lady Kali do the talking."

The walk to the throne room was the longest few minutes of Vegeta's life. He spent the time trying to think of something, anything he'd done to even inadvertently draw Kali's ire but could think of nothing. He'd spent most of his life apologizing for one perceived slight against Frieza or another and he'd gotten remarkably good and groveling and scraping just enough to skate by with his life. But, if he didn't know what to beg forgiveness for, the odds of escaping with all of their lives were slim to none.

As the throne room doors opened, they were hit with the same overwhelming wave of dark energy they'd felt upon their first meeting with the Empress. Though, this time, it was undulating with unchecked rage. She sat sideways on one of the thrones, legs thrown over the arm, feet bouncing in the air.

"Took you long enough," she said without bothering to look up.

They lined up before her, prostrating themselves on their knees, none daring to look up as she rose from her seat and approached.

"Stand up," she ordered Vegeta "and look at me when I'm talking to you, you ugly little monkey."

Vegeta complied and ignoring the slur. For a moment she opened her mouth as if to say something before thinking better of it. Instead, she raised a fist and buried it in Vegeta's core. He saw it coming and braced himself. There was no attempt to block or dodge, that would only make it worse. The blow left him doubled over and spitting blood all over the pristine marble floors.

"I need you to explain to me why you thought you could fuck me over and I wouldn't find out about it."

A hand wound into his hair, jerking his head back only to smash it down again into a waiting knee.

"I need you to explain to me," she reiterated, louder this time, "how you thought you were going to get away with it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Vegeta spit past the blood pouring from his nose.

That was obviously not the answer she was looking for. Vegeta felt himself sailing through the air and imbedding into a solid stone wall. It took a few moments to extricate himself as the air returned to his lungs and his vision cleared.

"Waiting on you, princess," Kali rolled, tapping her heeled foot impatiently as Vegeta dragged himself back to drop to his knees before her again, readying himself for more punishment. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

He dared not admit his own ignorance again, knowing it would only further antagonize her.

"You left an entire city untouched. One and half million people left alive."

But the stunned confusion on his face gave him away.

"That's impossible. I checked. I couldn't feel any significant sources of ki. I did a life force scan of the entire planet."

"Oh, you did a life force scan? How thorough of you," she applauded in acerbic praise. "Please tell me that you're not serious. You can't actually be this incompetent! A life force scan isn't going to pick up diddly on a population that weak! You wouldn't be able to differentiate a Piconese from a god damn house plant!"

"But an entire city…"

"By the time you ran a scan, the city had already emptied. They were all scurrying across the countryside trying to hide from you. And look at that. It worked. If you'd bothered to check for short wave radio communication or satellite activity, you would have realized, while you were dicking around, they were forming a guerrilla resistance force. They've already destroyed the cleanup team that landed after you and now I have to send an entire platoon to fix your mess!"

God how could he have been so stupid. He'd been so busy congratulating himself for achieving the impossible, turning Earth's defenders into death squad, that he'd made one of the oldest mistakes in the book. He'd be truly embarrassed, if he wasn't otherwise occupied trying to figure out a way to survive the next five minutes.

"That planet was a gem. I had a buyer lined up who was ready to pay twice the going market rate and now, I'll be lucky to get half. You've cost me _billions_ but, more importantly, you've made me look bad."

There was nothing he could do or say for himself. He'd fucked up. In the old days, a mistake on such a grand scale would have resulted in a near fatal beating for himself and death for any unfortunate underling who'd had a hand in the failure. Back then, Vegeta could rely on Freeza's sadistic favoritism to get him out of these situations alive, though not necessarily in once piece. But he had no reason to expect such mercy from Kali and he imagined that her brand of discipline would be far more inventive than just a simple execution. He could only hope that the punishment would be visited on him or, preferably, one of the idiots next to him, and not on someone less deserving.

As if in mocking answer to his prayer, the throne room doors cracked open and a voice announced the arrival of the 'detainees'. He could taste Bulma's tears in the air before he even laid eyes on her. She, Eighteen, and Chiaotzu were roughly shoved to their knees in line next to him. Kali made no effort to acknowledge the newcomers and, instead, kept her attention zeroed in on Vegeta.

"Now, I know it wouldn't be fair to place all the blame on you. You had help cocking up my operation," she said with deceptive composure. "So, I'll give you thirty seconds to tell me who else was responsible."

Vegeta had a good idea who was at fault for all of this. Gohan had been a thorn in his side from the very beginning. He looked down the line and saw fear on the boy's face, a face so familiar he wanted to bury his fist in it. He could, he absolutely should pass the buck to the person responsible. All he had to do was name names and the rest of them might actually survive this. But there was something stopping him. Some sudden onset of madness that demanded he shield the little mongrel from the consequences of his actions.

"I get it, you don't want to be a snitch," Kali added. "That's very noble of you. I guess I could just start forming a random limb pile until someone confesses."

"It was me."

Every head turned towards the source of the confession… Yamcha. Of course, it was Yamcha. It just wouldn't have been like him to allow someone else to die first for a change.

"It was me." he confessed again as tears formed in his eyes. "I let them live. I'd already killed so many people. I just couldn't… I couldn't do any more. I'm sorry."

"Shhh…" Kali soothed, placing a hand on his bent head as he sobbed.

"I'm so sorry. It was my fault. If you're going to kill anyone, kill me."

"Oh honey," she bent down to coo in his ear. "You know that's not how this works."

"You two," Kali abruptly turned her attention back down the line and came to stand between Bulma and Chiaotzu, "are damn near useless to me. Someone has to die tonight, so it might as well be one of you."

Vegeta struggled not to empty the contents of his stomach all over himself. This was it. The culmination of every losing hand he'd ever been dealt by the universe. It was all going to come down to the psychotic whims of a madwoman.

"Anyone have a coin to flip?"

Just below the sound of his heart trying to escape his chest he could hear Bulma's panicked, heaving breaths, but he dared not look at her. If he looked, she would know she was doomed. He couldn't save her. The best he could do was die with her. It would be stupid and futile but there was nothing for it. He could already feel himself rising on his haunches incrementally. His fists clenched, waiting to swing.

"No? How about this, I'm thinking of a number between one and ten…"

He'd been so convinced that he had what it took to make it, but he'd failed to realize just how deep his own weakness ran. Surviving wasn't just something Vegeta did, it was a fundamental part of who he was. He'd lived almost thirty years under Frieza and never, not for one second, had he questioned whether he had what it took to endure. Then Bulma happened. He'd tried to prepare himself for this moment, when he would lose her. She was the most fragile thing he'd ever held in his hands and it was only a matter of time until she shattered into a million pieces.

"I've got a better idea. Why don't you pick?" Kali posited to Yamcha.

"Wh…what?" he stammered back.

"Which one dies. It was your fuck up, so you pick," she posited, as if it made all the sense in the world. "Which one of your friends is gonna bite it?"

"I can't. I'm not going to choose between them! I'm the one that caused all of this! Just kill me!"

A sharp slap sounded as a slender hand met Yamcha's scarred face. The force caused his head to turn on his shoulders to an almost grotesque angle.

"I thought I made it clear that isn't an option. You screwed the pooch and now one of them is going to pay for it." She grabbed his face, forcing his cheeks together and pointing his line of sight towards Bulma and Chiaotzu. "If you cared about them, or anyone but your silly, weepy, little self, you would have done the job you were paid to do. But now, someone else is going to die for your mistake. The least you can do is choose which one it's going to be."

Yamcha continued his indecisive silence.

"Or I can just kill them both."

"Chiaotzu"

"No!" Tien sprang into action. His fist came within inches of Kali's face, but she just snickered at the attempt. Piccolo, Gohan, and Eighteen held him down as he screamed in protest, bucking, kicking, screaming bloody threats.

"That's you, isn't it?" Chiaotzu's tiny face stared up at the woman in wide eyed terror. His lower lip quivered as he backed away from her, as if he might escape.

"Tien… help."

"Sorry, dumpling. Tough luck."

Kali's hand darted out and grabbed Chiaotzu by the neck, dangling him in front of her. His short legs kicked wildly, trying to find purchase on something solid below him. His white hands clawed at his neck as he gasped for air like a fish out of water.

"I wonder if your insides are as adorable as your outsides."

One red tipped finger pushed into Chiaotzu's soft belly, ripping through skin, fat, muscle, and tissue. His scream was agonizing and sharp but quickly drowned by the blood filling his lungs. Kali dug into the wound as if she was searching for something, until her whole hand disappeared into the open chest cavity and finally emerged with a tiny, beating heart. It was over fast enough for the little doll prince to get a look at his own warm, pulsing organ before his eyes rolled back in his head and closed for good. She dropped the body and the steaming muscle into a red puddle on the floor and wiped the gore on her hands onto the front of her silk dress.

"I think all of you need to have a time out to sit and think about what you've done," she scolded over Tien's raging sobs as she stepped over the bloody mess she'd made, exited the throne room and swung the enormous doors shut behind her.

As soon as the reverberation of the slamming doors died away, a rageful, accusatory "You…" rumbled from Tien before he leapt from the floor, pinning Yamcha beneath him. He rained blows down on the man who had sentenced his companion to death, bone splintering, face breaking blows. Tien pulled no punches and Yamcha made no attempt to stop them. He took each one like well deserved payment.

"That's enough!" Krillin seized onto Tien's wrist. "It's not going to bring him back." But the interjection barely slowed Tien down and nearly earned Krillin an elbow to the face for his effort. Before he could dive into the fray again, a cool hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Let them work it out," Eighteen said, observing the one sided fight from a distance.

They all stood looking on as one friend mercilessly beat the other, unsure of when or if they should step in. It soon became unbearable to watch as Tien let his tears fall unabashed and Yamcha's face turned swollen and unrecognizable.

"Son of a bitch!" Tien finally shouted through a stifled sob and threw himself onto the floor next to the target of his rage. Yamcha lay motionless, his breath labored and wet.

"He needs a regen tank," Krillin remarked as he hefted his friend over one shoulder. "I'll take him to the infirmary."

"You should go too." Piccolo offered a hand up to Tien, observing the busted and bloody knuckles on both of his hands.

He declined the help and pulled himself off the floor without assistance. Seeing Krillin struggling to move a much larger Yamcha, Tien took over, heaved the unconscious man over his broad shoulders and carried him out the doors himself.

"We should go with them. I don't think either one of them should be alone right now," Krillin remarked as he, Eighteen, Gohan and Piccolo followed a bloody and stoic Tien down the hall.

When the doors swung shut for the second time, Vegeta finally felt his senses return to him. In the moment, in the thick of it, his vision had greyed at the edges and all he could see was Bulma. He was vaguely aware that there had been some bloodshed, some yelling and screaming, but he was only able to put it all together now that the adrenaline rush had died to a manageable level. He realized that Bulma was holding a small body in her lap, clutching its cold hand and fruitlessly trying to wipe the blood from its face.

"What do we do with him?" she wailed.

"Leave him." Vegeta removed the corpse from her grip, pulled her into his arms, and carried her away from the gruesome scene. "There's nothing you can do."

* * *

Bulma turned the mildewed knobs in the shower stall and stepped under the spray. The warm rivulets washed away the dried tears on her cheeks, but cold, coagulated blood stuck to her skin and hair. She slipped a bar of soap between her hands and scrubbed until the water circling the drain turned from red, to pink, to clear.

She had been right next to Chiaotzu when it happened. She hadn't been prepared for how hot the spray of his blood would be. It felt like she had been doused with boiling thick syrup. She'd been unable to turn away from it. She'd watched the whole grisly nightmare and the only thing she felt in the moment was… relief. It was the second time that day someone had died in her place and both times the only emotion she'd been able to muster was overwhelming relief that it hadn't been her.

After everything was said and done, she felt grief. She mourned the loss of her friend and she'd even shed a tear for the nameless coworker whose life had ended instead of hers. But she didn't feel any guilt. If she were still on Earth and the last few months had never happened, she would have been absolutely wracked with shame. But something had fundamentally changed in her. She remembered asking Vegeta once whether he ever felt remorse for all the people he had killed before settling down on Earth. She'd been shocked when he'd told her no. At the time, she couldn't understand it. She knew despite what Vegeta believed about himself, he was a good man. How could he not feel some regret for what he'd done in his former life? But, now that she'd lived it herself, she understood that clawing, desperate, selfish need to survive. In this place, it was kill or be killed. Before she'd come here, she'd had a list as long as her arm of people she thought she would be willing to sacrifice her life for. Now, that list had shrunk to two. Trunks, Vegeta, and herself were her only priority. She would do what she could to save her friends, but she knew now that they weren't all going to make it. If she had to leave some of them behind to save herself and those most important to her, well… she could live with it.

A cold burst of air rushed through the room as the bathroom door opened and shut. Bare feet padded on the wet tile floor and a splash followed amour landing in a puddle. Bulma's heart picked up in anticipation when she saw the tanned legs on the other side of the curtain. It drew back, and Vegeta stepped under the spray with her, crowding her into the corner of the stall. His stare was taciturn, unreadable. He was bruised and bloody where Kali had beaten him. There were older wounds under that he must have suffered during his mission. His purge. She'd nearly forgotten he'd just returned from committing a genocide. The longer she looked at him, the more she could see the exhaustion in his eyes, and not just the physical kind.

Her hands slipped across his chest and up his corded neck to cup his face, but he resisted. He wouldn't kiss her or look at her. She knew this game. This was what he always did when he found himself _feeling_ things. He thought he could hide it from her by playing rough. Under any other circumstances, she would be more than willing to accommodate him but, if he thought he was going to shut her out for weeks, going on months and then expect her to obediently bend over for him, he had another thing coming.

"Turn around," he ordered.

"No."

His hands wrapped around her wrists, wrenched them from his face and placing them on the tiled wall behind her, spinning her body around in the process. He leaned over her, his chest to her back, forcing her to bend at the waist.

"Don't tell me no when I can smell what a needy girl you are."

"I want to touch you. I want to look at you," she pleaded with him, but her request was ignored. Instead he forced a knee between her legs and lifted her hips up to meet his behind her.

"I'm serious. I'm not some sex doll you can position any way you like." She straightened her back and tried to shimmy out of his grip, but he held firm.

"I said stop!" Finally, he released her and when she turned back around, he was incensed.

"Don't you look at me like that," she hissed threateningly. "I know how you operate. You're not going to fuck me and then go back to ignoring me."

"If you're not interested, I'm going back to bed," he said as he opened the curtain to leave but Bulma shoved it closed again before he could exit the stall.

"We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"I did it Vegeta. I broke into the security system and…"

His open palm slammed onto the wall next to her, cracking the tile underneath.

"Gods damn it, woman! How many fucking times do you have to be almost executed before you stop! This is it! This is our life now! The sooner you accept that, the longer you'll live!"

"You're wrong!" she spit back. "I found a way out! I'm going to find Trunks and I'm going to get us the hell out of this place, with or without you!"

So, she'd done it. He'd all but given it up as a lost cause but she'd been true to her word. She was made of stronger stuff than he was and always had been. He remembered now that the woman he was so worried was made of glass, had steel in her spine. He would wither and die without her, but she could and would survive without him. Gods was he pathetic. He'd been wallowing in self-pity since the moment they'd been captured while she had never given up the fight. She was fucking awe inspiring.

"Vegeta, don't make me do it without you," she pled with him, resting her forehead on his, holding his face in her hands.

And this time, he didn't turn her away. His lips met hers and it wasn't soft, or sweet, or slow but it was an atonement for ever doubting her, a promise to never underestimate her again. The dissonance that had been mounting between them dissolved and was replaced by a different, more urgent kind of tension. He pulled her to him and she fit seamlessly, just as she always had. His mind reeled at how or why he'd ever forced himself to go without this.

The water had already gone tepid but Bulma barely noticed. Vegeta's body against hers felt like flames licking at her skin. Her breasts slipped and slid against his chest until he pushed her back against the cool tile wall to give himself unimpeded access. His hands traversed her goosefleshed skin and his tongue lapped at her puckered nipples.

Her knees began to shake when she felt a hand glide all the way down to ghost against her thigh and up again to rest at her slit. He gently pushed her lips apart to enter the soaking wet depths of her and she nearly wept at the sensation of his fingers inside her after so long of having only her own to satiate her. She wrapped one leg around him to spread herself for him and he took full advantage, rocking his hand into her until panting breaths turned to plaintive moans. When his thumb moved to circle the swollen bead hidden beneath her folds, she felt herself coil and release in unbearable ecstasy. He didn't stop until her body reached the absolute pinnacle of its capacity for pleasure. It was almost too much, but not quite enough. She needed more. She needed all of him.

"Please," she begged as she wrapped her fingers around his length. "I want you." She felt him swell to full girth in her hand.

He lifted her legs off the floor one at a time, resting the back of her knees in the crook of his arms. Her back moved against the tile and she slid down until she felt the tip of his cock press at her entrance. When he pushed into her it was like a homecoming. It started slow and languid, neither wanting the moment to end too soon, but it wasn't long before Bulma was demanding it faster, harder, deeper. Vegeta bowed to her whims and battered into her without mercy, feeling the last tendrils of his prideful discipline slip away. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck or the silk of her hair but, at this angle, there was no hiding from her. She could see every gasp and shudder that she wrought from him, the look of awe and adoration written plainly across his features.

"So good…" she whispered before she climaxed again. The her shivering silk pulled him even deeper and a hoarse animal growl rumbled in his chest as his own end came over him. The world and everything in it disappeared and, for a few blessed seconds, the only thing that existed was Bulma. All the fear, and rage and shame that had been threatening to drown him flowed away like the water cascading over their bodies.

Awareness returned to them both quickly as they finally realized the shower stream had turned icy. Vegeta took care to wrap a towel around her, warming her with his body against her. He carried her to his bed and closed the curtain behind them. They would not sleep another night apart.

* * *

A/N: If you recall, I promised you guys some Rutbisbe fan art to go along with this chapter. You can find it on my Tumblr. The info is in my bio.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: As promised, for those of you who were not comfortable with the adult themes in the last chapter, here's a recap. Vegeta and Co. arrived back from the purge to find out that the mission hadn't been executed as planned. Someone (Yamcha) had failed to take out a city and it had caused some financial blowback to Kali. As you can imagine, she was not pleased but, rather than killing Yamcha, she decided to kill Chiaotzu in a rather grisly fashion. Bulma's detainment turned out to be a result of the botched purge mission and not her hacking. She remains undiscovered. She and Vegeta have a tender/steamy moment. Now... on ward.

* * *

 **Chapter 10**

Somewhere in the deepest, darkest corner of the Geminon citadel, an ancient ritual was underway. A cloaked figure chanted in a long dead language and worshiped at the altar of a forgotten evil. At the center of the sinister sacrament was a woman. She lay astride a creature with the body of a man and the head of a horned beast. It bucked and bayed beneath her as she raised a blade above its breast, poised to strike.

"Rise Baphomet! Hear my call!" the woman plead. The air itself was alive with a dark unseen presence. It whipped her hair about her face and rattled the chains holding the beast to the altar. "Speak my name in the undying tongue and I shall have everlasting life!"

The creature raged and strained against its shackles, snorting and foaming at the mouth. Suddenly and without warning, the dagger fell, and it let out an unholy scream. The women pushed down slowly until the blade was buried to the hilt. The beast gagged and spat blood past its forked tongue, writhing in agony until she gently twisted the weapon and it went still.

"Whoo!" she shivered as she leapt off the dead animal. "I love that old-time religion!" she sang, raising her bloody hands before her face, examining them, before looking down at the rest of her body. "Am I supposed to feel different?"

"The effects should be immediate, Lady Kali." The cloaked figure lowered his hood and bowed as he addressed his mistress. He was a scabby looking man who looked like he had spent the better part of his life involved in one kind of malevolent pursuit or another.

"Should be?"

"I've done my best to translate the Verbis Aeternum but ancient Piconese is an extremely complex language. There are multiple interpretations of…"

"I hired you because you're supposed to be an expert in all of this voodoo crap!"

"I am a high priest of the Cult of Byzantium, a member of the Coven of Capra, and a necromancer of great skill. Please believe that I exist only to serve you and all of my knowledge of the dark arts is at your disposal. For you are the great evil that my people have foretold for generations. You are the dragon that will engulf all the universe in flames and…"

"Great. So, am I immortal or not?"

"The text calls for the repetition of the sacred verses and a sacrifice of a creature born to man and beast. The mortal who completes this ritual will be granted eternal life by the demon Baphomet."

"And we did all that…"

"Yes. Your science department produced the creature via gene splicing. We recited the Piconese scripture. According to the text, you should be immortal."

"Only one way to know for sure," she shrugged as she ran the edge of the knife she was gripping from the tip of her finger and across her palm. When she came to her wrist, she dug the blade into her skin with purpose, causing a fount of deep crimson to stream all the way down her arm to stain the satin of her gown.

"Well, would you look at that," she said, clenching her fist, causing the blood to gush from her wrist in a torrent. "I'm bleeding out."

The man stood in a shocked stupor as he watching the life drain from his mistress.

"A little help here!" she demanded as she pressed the satin of her gown to the wound. The underling immediately sprang into action and pressed a rather smelly herb concoction to her wrist, staunching the flow of blood and leaving behind no trace of the injury.

"Explain shit stain," she grit through clenched teeth at the terrified priest.

"We recreated the ritual exactly." He unfurled the ancient dusty scroll he had been reading from and poured over it again. "The only thing I can think of…"

"Yes?" the empress said testily, crossing her arms across her chest.

"The word for 'life' and 'fertility' are the same in ancient Piconese. It is possible that the ritual is intended to grant the subject eternal youth, to remain in the peak years of fertility for all time."

Kali fixed a deadly stare on the man, and he cowered under her gaze.

"My lady, it is my understanding that you wish to achieve eternal life. The ritual we have performed tonight has brought you one step closer to that goal," but she continued to look at him as if he were something nasty on the bottom of her shoe. "If I have displeased you in some way, if I have said something to earn you ire, I beg you to rip out my unworthy tongue."

"Gimme," she said, holding out her hand expectantly. The man approached hesitantly, hoping against hope that she hadn't interpreted his words literally. He shook with relief and retreated as Kali yanked the scroll from his hands rather than his tongue from his head.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked, not waiting for a reply. "This is absolutely fucking useless to me!" she exclaimed, ripping the artifact to shreds. "I could wipe my ass with every eternal youth spell you occult types have tried to sell me!"

"But my lady!" The priest fell to his knees, groveling before the empress. "I can see now, it is clear, you look unmistakably youthful! You are positively radiant!"

"Of course, I'm radiant, you twat! I haven't aged a godsdamn day in three hundred years!"

"Please. Lady Kali. We will find another way," the sorcerer prostrated himself before his mistress as he begged for mercy. "I can help you obtain true immortality, but I just need more time!"

Kali rolled her eyes as she advanced on her groveling minion. "That's what they all say," she murmured in disappointment as she snapped his neck.

* * *

It was unsettling how quickly things returned to normal after the incident in the throne room. Tien remained his stoic, introverted self in the wake of Chiaotzu's death, refusing to share his grief with anyone, except maybe Yamcha. Remarkably, the two men had actually grown closer after everything was said and done, eager to make amends for the damage they'd caused the other. The rest of the group carried on much as they had before, regarding the grisly event as just another drop in the enormous bucket of trauma they'd been shouldering for months.

Bulma remained tense for some time after her successful hack into the classified database. She'd been convinced she was caught red handed that day she'd been taken into custody. It hadn't even occurred to her that her short-lived detainment and her covert work were unrelated until Kali spelled it out. She'd miraculously made it out unscathed but remained paranoid that, any minute, they would correct their mistake. It had taken her several days to work up the nerve to analyze the data she'd collected and form it into some kind of cohesive plan.

"It's not going to be easy," she whispered to Vegeta in their bunk, long after lights out.

"Of course not. It's not like the gods owe us one or anything."

He held her against his chest as it rose and fell steadily and wiped the thin line of perspiration from her brow. They'd just finished making love and he'd hoped she'd allow him a few moments of silence but she'd been too eager to start plotting their escape.

"There's no way to remove the chip. It's just not possible without significant risk of brain damage. But I think I can partially deactivate them with the access codes I found."

"What do you mean partially?"

"I can increase the ki caps, maybe even remove them entirely. I can disable that awful neural stimulus Jaeko used on Gohan. I think I can even disrupt the location beacon long enough for us to get the hell out of here and far enough away that they won't be able to track us."

"And how long will it take you to do it?"

"It depends. Since I'm not going to go digging around in your skull, I'll have to connect to the chip wirelessly. The only way to do that is with a devise recognized by the PTO's network."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Don't you have access to a computer at work?"

"Yes, but it would only take seconds for them to trace it back to me. I tried rerouting through a proxy but…" The fingers that had previously been drawing invisible figure eights on Vegeta's chest went still as she remembered her nameless coworker's brains splattered all over the office window. "I can't do that again."

"So, what are you suggesting we do?"

"I would need a decommissioned devise. Something reported as lost or stolen would have its network access suspended. I could reestablish the connection and they wouldn't even know where to look for me."

"Lost or stolen? You mean black market."

"I'm sure it won't be that hard to find. I've heard the gossip in the mess hall. Soldiers strip their pods bare, sell everything they can to turn a profit, then report the thing as damaged during a mission."

"And I suppose you're expecting me to find this thing for you," he huffed in mild annoyance.

"You could look around for something on your next mission," she suggested. "Where are they sending you anyway?"

"Some bug planet out in the far west quadrant."

"Ew, bugs?"

"Giant ones. Big ugly cockroaches," he teased as he walked his fingers down her bare back like a five-legged creepy-crawly and sniggered when she squirmed in disgust.

"Are you going to tell the others once you ship out?"

He knew she was eager to tell her friends about her breakthrough, but he'd convinced her to keep it between the two of them, at least for now.

"No."

"I don't know why we have to keep this secret," she said as she turned over onto her side and fluffed her pillow. "Don't you think they deserve a morale boost after everything that's happened?"

"We'll tell them when we have something to tell," he deflected, trying to dodge her elbow in his face as she attempted to find a comfortable position on the narrow cot. "If this plan doesn't work out, what do you think _that_ will do to their morale?"

He didn't want to tell her his concern was less for the deterioration of their optimism and more about the possibility of a renewed rebellion. He'd just barely convinced them of the necessity of following orders and obeying their captors. If they knew an escape plan was in the works, it might make them sloppy. Or worse, it might make them impatient and irrational. They couldn't afford another fuck up like their last purge mission.

"Have you found anything about Trunks?" he asked hesitantly. His certainty that his son was still alive was tested and waned a little every day that he searched for his ki and felt nothing. He'd thought maybe Bulma would succeed where he failed but it seemed even her brilliance was not enough to bring their boy back to them.

"I'm still working on that."

"We can't go anywhere until we know where he is. Even if he's dead we can't leave until we know."

"Don't say that," she turned and rebuked him in a whispered hiss. "Don't even think it. He's alive. I would know if he was gone. I would feel it," she insisted, tearing up at even the suggestion that she would never see her baby again.

"I shouldn't have said that," he recanted and pulled her closer to him. "He's alive. I know that."

"There was something in the secured files. The whole system shut down when I tried to access it. It has something to do with Saiyans. Does Project Bunker sound familiar to you?"

"Never heard of it."

"Whatever it is, that's where we'll find Trunks and Goten," she said with conviction. "What do you think it is? What… what do you think they're doing to them?"

"If they're important enough to Kali to keep under such tight security then I'm sure they're being well taken care of," he soothed into her ear, hoping against hope that he was telling her the truth. "Try to get some sleep."

* * *

They shipped out the next morning with an ass kicking and a stern warning from Jaeko that anything less than a flawlessly executed mission would result in their grisly, painful deaths. Vegeta made no attempt to haggle on payment this time. Their wages from the last mission had been docked by half but he was not about to press the issue. They were lucky to have been paid at all. Frankly, they were lucky to be alive.

Their second purge went off without a hitch. The population was ki wielding but primitive. They'd neutralized any real threats with the same electromagnetic wave that felled them before the attack on Earth. Culling the civilian population seemed to be far less psychologically taxing on the earthlings this time around as the species more closely resembled enormous insects than any kind of hominid. Humans, Vegeta had learned, could be truly barbarous under the right circumstances. They were capable of even the most heinous acts of torture and slaughter if they found the victims to be sufficiently dissimilar to themselves. This race of people spoke in a chirping language rather than Standard and it was hard to interpret the noises they made as pleas for mercy, though that's what they were. These creatures were sentient, had homes, families, and an organized society. But this time around, they barely needed any encouragement to complete their mission.

That didn't mean Vegeta was going to be as careless as he was the last time. He'd paired them up before sending them off to their respective sectors, an added layer of oversight just in case one of them decided that giant bugs were people too. He'd done a thorough sweep of the entire planet and scanned for any possible signs of life, including communication frequencies, before he was satisfied the job was done.

While the rest of the squad purged, Vegeta was busy hunting for Kali's latest magic trinket. When he found the thing, it was guarded by a legion of the planet's most formidable warriors, though they could do nothing but writhe and squirm as they fought against the incapacitating wave emanating from the beacon he'd released in the planet's orbit. He'd almost felt sorry for them as he collected their race's most prized possession right from under their noses. It was not a good death for any warrior. He'd killed them cleanly at least.

Vegeta looked down to the floor of his pod at the thing that had been so heavily guarded. It was disgusting. A glowing, squirming sack of what looked to be larvae. He'd been hesitant to touch it at first, fearing the contents would escape their enclosure and crawl up his arm. A whole planet full of giant cockroaches were fine by him but worms… that was something else entirely.

The autopilot pinged and alerted him of their imminent touchdown. They were stopping over on some backwater to refuel the pods. The planet was on the outer edge of the empire and barely populated. It was so remote, it hadn't even warranted naming, appearing as Planet G-21155 on the navigation system.

The pods landed smoothly and Vegeta stepped out onto the deck to count heads. They numbered seven this time, now that Eighteen had been returned from her assignment as a guinea pig. He looked around the docking station for an attendant and saw a young man approaching at a leisurely pace.

"What can I do ya for?" he drawled, rolling the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other.

"They need to be refueled," Vegeta responded, motioning to the pods on the landing strip behind him, still smoking from atmospheric reentry.

"That'll take a while. These babies take premium dilithium crystals. Can't just plug a hose in um and guzzle 'um full a gallium, you know."

"How long is it going to take?"

"I can have 'em ready by tomorrow."

Vegeta narrowed his eyes at the man distrustfully. He didn't like being delayed and he liked the idea of leaving the pods with this slippery little shit even less.

"I'll expect them to be fueled and de-radiated by no later than 0800."

"Sure thing, mister. And how do you intend to pay?"

Vegeta pulled the fuel requisition order from his breastplate and handed it to the attendant. The kid huffed and folded the paper in half dismissively. He couldn't exactly blame him for being peeved. The order meant he was obligated to refuel seven pods with premium fuel for nothing but loose change on the credit, to be reimbursed at some unknown date by the Empire. He was going to have to grease the wheels if he wanted to return the following day to pods that hadn't been stripped down to the metal frames.

Vegeta reached into his pocket again and pulled out a hundred credit chip. He tossed it to the attendant.

"Make sure those pods are in one piece when I return, and I'll double that tomorrow."

"Sure thing!"

It was not a small chunk of change, especially considering they'd been paid next to nothing for their last job, but it was less costly than the beating he would take from Jaeko if he had to return to Geminon in a commandeered craft and explain how he'd lost seven pods on his way.

"Is there a place to stay around here," Vegeta asked the attendant, who he assumed was a local based on the twang in his accented Standard. "Somewhere cheap."

"Only one inn on this planet, The Buckhorn Tavern. Tell Dolly I sent ya. She'll treat 'cha real nice."

Vegeta followed the man's directions and they headed for the center of town. The planet was bleak and desolate with the exception of one small strip of land that had been terraformed to be barely habitable. The locals they passed on their way were just as wretched as their planet. It was a misfortune to live in a place like this, one that was inherited from parents and passed on to children. The majority of people who ever stepped foot on this rock were soldiers, refueling to get to or from somewhere more important, or criminals trying conduct shady dealings somewhere no one was watching. On this trip Vegeta was both. He kept his eye open for a pawn shop or consignment broker. Every planet like this had one, a place you could go to buy and sell things you weren't supposed to have. As they entered the tavern, he took note of the green store front across the main street with gold credit symbols painted in the window.

"Welcome to Buckhorn, sugars." They were greeted by a buxom older woman with a voluminous blonde wig. "I'm Dolly. How can I be of service to you handsome gentleman?" she said, waving a tattered lace fan over her plump face, "and beautiful lady," she added, when she noticed Eighteen.

"We need beds for the night," Vegeta requested gruffly.

"We certainly have plenty of those, and some of the prettiest girls this side of Deadwood Nebula to keep them warm for you." The madam pulled back a red velvet curtain revealing a smoky saloon. The scantily clad women interspersed amongst the carousing, hard drinking clientele perked up and posed salaciously when they saw the drape drawn. "Fair prices for fair ladies. Lotta and Lola are double the rate," she said, motioning to a scaly woman with two heads on her shoulders.

"Just the rooms," Vegeta said, looking pointedly at the men behind him.

"Sure thing," she said, ushering them through past the curtain. "Make yourselves at home while we get your rooms ready. Someone will be around to bring you a warm meal and a stiff drink."

Vegeta found them a table near the bar. When the waitress came around, he ordered them all the cheapest, heartiest thing on the menu.

"And maybe a round of," Yamcha stopped to flash his most debonair smile at the girl, "what would you recommend?"

"Well," she smiled and bat her eyes, "the amber rye has a nice smooth finish and is strong enough to kick your teeth in."

"Seven of those please," he ordered with a wink.

The service was quick. The waitress left and returned to the table a few minutes later with their drinks.

Gohan picked up the glass of brown liquid set before him, trying his best to hide his excitement, as if being served alcohol in an establishment of ill repute was old hat to the teenager. He sniffed the drink discreetly and readied himself to gulp down the fowl smelling concoction.

"Gohan," Piccolo interjected before the adult beverage could pass his lips. "I think you should let someone else have that."

"Oh, come on," Yamcha advocated. "He's practically an adult by now. How old are you, Gohan? Eighteen, nineteen?"

"Fifteen," Piccolo said, an edge of warning in his tone to both Yamcha and Gohan, who was still eyeing the drink longingly.

"Sixteen, if you count the year in the time chamber," Gohan said defiantly, setting the glass down but not yet willing to take his hand off of it.

"Well I don't count it," Piccolo answered.

"I'm sure one drink isn't going to kill him," Krillin chimed in, and to the Namekian's immense displeasure, gently elbowing Piccolo in the ribs. He huffed in annoyance, accepting his defeat and sipping from his own liquor.

"You can have _one_ ," he emphasized, glaring at the boy, cautioning him against abusing the indulgence he was being granted. Gohan didn't need to be told twice and immediately took a much larger gulp than he was prepared to handle, stifling his grimace of disgust lest he break the illusion of grownup sophistication.

Another round of drinks followed the first, though Gohan still meekly sipped from his first glass under Piccolo's watchful eye. The stiffly poured drinks on their empty stomachs were enough to lift their spirits and loosen Vegeta's tightfisted grip on their budget, a move that Vegeta expected was intentional on the part of the establishment. They ended up ordering several more plates of food and far too many rounds of drinks. Within a few hours, Krillin was sitting on his Wife's lap while they necked like teenagers while Tien and Yamcha were drunkenly slurring their song requests at the house band, trying to get them to play something called "Freebird".

"I think it's time to switch to water," Piccolo remarked, as he rose from the table and stumbled to the bar to close their tab. Vegeta looked over to Gohan and pretended not to notice as the boy snuck sips out the remnants of half finished drinks strewn around the table.

"Hey there soldier," a tiny, vibrantly pink skinned girl sat next to Gohan, close enough that her knees touched his. She ran her fingers through his course hair as she fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Haven't seen you around here before. How about you and me go upstairs so I can give you a proper welcome?"

"Umm…" he stammered, trying to form something resembling a coherent response. He looked over to Vegeta, as if he might be able to remind him of the answer to the lady's very simple question but the other Saiyan pretended to be occupied by the cold food still left on his plate. He watched the boy from the corner of his eye as he turned a shade of pink, almost as garish as the girl who had since moved to sit in his lap. Gohan had obviously never experienced anything so forward from a woman and looked caught somewhere between abject terror and stupefied wonder. Vegeta could practically hear the gears of his higher brain function grinding to a halt and the mechanisms of his _other_ brain sputtering to life. He was about to interject and remind the horny little bastard that, whatever the girl was offering would come with a hefty invoice, but he stayed quiet. This moment was something of a vital juncture in a young man's life and Vegeta, for some unknown reason, felt disinclined to embarrass the kid. He also felt a small twinge of regret for not having better prepared him.

It was only a few years ago he'd been roped into giving Gohan what Earthlings colloquially called "the talk." Bulma relayed that the boy's mother felt the information was best discussed man to man and Piccolo had opted out, claiming to have no knowledge of such things, though he suspected that was just a convenient excuse to save the Namekian from an embarrassing discussion. Vegeta had awkwardly explained the mechanics of how men and women fit together and the basics of reproduction, at some point realizing he wasn't telling the boy anything he hadn't already gleaned from an anatomy book. What he had been totally unprepared for was Gohan steering the conversation away from the sterile scientific facts to the art of wooing women. The kid had looked at him as if he should have all the answers, much like he had moments ago.

The truth was Vegeta knew next to nothing about pursuing women. He'd never had to do it before. Since the time he was Gohan's age, maybe even younger, there had never been a shortage of women offering themselves to him on some kind of transactional basis. The first time he'd ever seen a pair of breasts he'd been twelve. Nappa had paid a bar wench to take her top off for Vegeta and Raditz to 'find out if their willies were working yet.' His first sexual experience had been in an establishment much like this one when Raditz bought him a girl for his fifteenth birthday. Not every woman he'd slept with had been a professional, but they'd all had some expectation of remuneration, whether it be cash, status, or protection. Bulma was the first woman he'd ever had an interest in that didn't want anything from him. She was the first woman he'd ever had to actively seduce.

Vegeta remembered how flustered he'd been trying to think of some nugget of wisdom to impart on the boy and feeling like nothing in his limited experience would ever be relevant. Gohan, he'd imagined at the time, would learn what sex was all about with some flat chested debutant in the back seat of her father's car, not in a way station whore house like he had. He couldn't have predicted that Gohan's adolescence would so closely mirror his own and now Vegeta found himself wishing he could go back and have that conversation all over again.

"I um… I'm alright. I shouldn't. Thanks anyway though… You're very pretty… I just…"

"That's alright honey. How about a dance instead?" she giggled at his nervous stuttering, "On the house."

She took her time lifting herself from Gohan's lap and led him out to the dance floor where he placed his awkwardly long arms around her waist and began to sway to the music.

"I'm gone for one minute," Vegeta heard Piccolo grumble behind him as he set down his glass and the room keys he'd retrieved from the bar.

"Relax grandma. He's fine." Vegeta responded with a smirk.

Piccolo sat in the chair next to him and observed the scene of his ward clumsily two stepping with the girl as she dragged his hands from her waist to rest on her rear end.

"So, are we going to address the elephant in the room?" Piccolo asked.

"Good gods. I did the best I could with the little hormone monster. You know you could have talked to him yourself if you…"

"I was talking about Bulma's breakthrough."

Oh. So, he knew about that. Of course, he did. It was impossible to keep anything from that nosey asshole.

"How much did you hear?"

"Far more than I ever wanted or needed to." Piccolo responded, taking a long sip of his cloudy glass of water. "I agree it's best not to discuss it with the rest of them until we have something concrete to work with."

Vegeta blushed at the confession that the Namekian had been privy to his and Bulma's nighttime activities and was grateful for the segue back to the matter at hand. "So, you'll keep it to yourself for now? Including from young Casanova over there?" he said, nodding towards Gohan and taking Piccolo at his word when he nodded in confirmation.

"We're on the lookout for a decommissioned network devise," Vegeta reiterated, whispering conspiratorially to the man next to him.

"Did you see that pawn shop when we walked in?" Piccolo asked.

"I suppose that's as good a place to start looking as any." Vegeta rose to his feet but stumbled before he could correct his balance, just now realizing how drunk he really was. "You coming?"

"I don't know who needs my supervision more right now, him or you," Piccolo said, rolling his eyes and turning back to check on Gohan.

"He'll be fine," Vegeta waved dismissively. "If we find what we're looking for, I'll need someone to stand around looking huge and menacing so I can negotiate."

Piccolo took one last distrustful look towards the dance floor before following Vegeta across the street.

* * *

A/N: Thanks again to bitchytimemachine for taking the time to read through my mess before its posted and for being a very patient sounding board as I work through this story. In case you missed it last chapter, I shared some gorgeous fanart I commissioned from Rutbisbe. Unfortunately, due to recent changes at Tumblr, the post was flagged for depicting "female presenting nipples"... (¬_¬). So you can now find it on my Twitter brinker6. It's the only thing on there as I've never actually used Twitter before but it looks like I'll be getting some use out of the account now that the exodus from Tumblr has begun. As always, I am forever grateful for your comments. Keep them coming!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

They were serving a brand new variety of mystery meat in the mess hall tonight. Green with a distinctly vinegary aftertaste. Bulma shoveled it into her mouth without complaint. Even if she felt the inclination to whine about the nearly inedible food, there was no one there to listen. It was her third day alone on base after the rest of the group shipped out on their latest mission. The third night she'd braved the mess hall alone. She'd been discretely terrified the first time she'd ventured into the packed common space by herself, but the soldiers and other staff gave her a wide berth. No one bothered her or even lingered in her presence long enough to make eye contact. She sat alone at their regular table, even when the hall was packed to the gills and others were forced to eat standing up.

Vegeta's enduring legacy within the PTO as a violent maniac provided her a small measure of protection but that didn't mean she let her guard down. She was constantly on high alert, watching and listening to everything going on around her. She'd become quite the snoop in the last few days and had taken to listening in on other's conversations.

"Man, I did not sign up for this shit," a large and aggressively hairy soldier grumbled at the table next to her.

"Technically, none of us _signed up_ for this," his smaller but equally shaggy comrade chimed in.

"In basic, they trained us to rip someone's head from their spinal cord, and here I am, cleaning up after a couple of snot nosed brats."

Bulma nearly choked on her mystery meat. Brats? Did she hear him correctly?

"What's he want with them anyway?"

"Who knows. He's a creepy fuck. What's a grown man doing keeping two little kids locked up underground?"

Underground? Locked up underground? Was that where they were keeping her baby?

"He never even leaves himself. He looks like he hasn't seen the sun in about a decade."

"Hiding from his sister, no doubt."

"If Kali wanted that scrawny puke dead, there's nothing he could do to stop her. I bet those kids could even snap him in half if they ever got a mind to break out."

Bulma didn't waste any more time listening. Her head was swimming and he knees wobbled but she stood from the table, making every effort to appear casual. The tray in her hands shook like a leaf as she dumped it in the trash and she nearly tripped over her own feet trying to walk out of the mess hall. She was sure everyone must be staring at her. She must have a bright neon sign above her head reading 'I know something I shouldn't.'

She knew where Trunks and Goten were and she knew who was keeping them, or at least she had a general idea. Underground. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it was a start. She'd suspected for some time that there must be subterranean level to the base. The kind of research that was described in the PTO classified documents would not have remained classified unless there was somewhere away from public view to conduct it. It was now apparent to her that her son was part of that research.

Bulma recalled seeing sets of blueprints and maps in the haul of documents she'd stolen but she'd yet to take a thorough look at them. If she was going to figure out how to access the underground portion of the base, she would start there.

No one noticed her as she alternated between sprinting and shuffling along inconspicuously to the Science and Technology building, now dark and empty for the night. She effortlessly cracked open the keycard reader to override the door locks. Once inside, she meandered back to the enormous empty void of her office. It seemed cavernous and dark without the hundreds of working spaces that stretched through the space during the day. She rummaged through the box at the entrance filled with counterfeit capsules and popped open a work station. The blue light from her computer illuminated her small corner of the room and threw eerie shadows behind her. Before opening any of her files, she cast a paranoid look over her shoulder, straining to see if there was anyone watching her from the dark.

She'd gotten marginally braver about venturing onto the other side of the PTO firewall, now that she'd done it a few times without the entire Imperial Army coming down on her head. She'd avoided even looking at the Project Bunker file and, so far, successfully avoided tripping any other landmines that might alert the authorities to her activities. She sincerely hoped she remained as lucky tonight.

She fished through a few empty and irrelevant files before finding what she was looking for. She pulled up the schematics for the palace that sat at the center of the base. It was the least accessible and most heavily guarded structure. If Kali and her brother were hiding an access point to a subterranean level, it would seem like the obvious place. She scoured the three-dimensional draft, zooming in and analyzing every square inch for some indication of a hidden structure, but found nothing. She did the same with the blue prints for the training facilities, barracks, mess hall, flight hanger, and several other outbuildings but came up empty. The last document was the science building, right where she currently sat. She stared at it until her eyes watered and her vision went blurry but there was nothing there either.

She was about to close the file and give up for the night when she noticed an empty square. It sat at the back of the building with nothing else around it and no cause for it to exist. Just empty space surrounded by four walls, about the size of…

"An elevator shaft," she whispered to herself over the rush of blood in her ears.

It was only a few yards away from her. Trunks could be right beneath the ground she stood on at this very moment. As she closed out her work, she felt her feet moving, carrying her deeper into the empty building before she even registered where she was going.

This was crazy. She needed to leave, right now. She needed to go back to the relative safety of her barracks before anyone saw her and wait for Vegeta to return. But she couldn't. Now that she knew where her son was, it was like her body was physically rebelling against her brain to get to him. Even if she couldn't save him on her own, she needed to see him, even if it was only for a few seconds. If she could just see with her own eyes that he was alive, she could keep going for as long as she had to.

When she came to the empty space on the blueprint, she found a nondescript door protected by nothing but a magnetic keycard lock. Just like everything else in this gods forsaken place, it was hidden in plain sight. No one would know what it was unless they knew what they were looking for.

When she jimmied open the locking device, she realized it was substantially more complicated than it appeared from the outside but, still, she made quick work of it. The door opened to reveal an empty shaft.

"Shit."

For a moment, she considered closing the door and going back, waiting for Vegeta and her friends to do the heavy lifting, just like she always. But, as she stood there, in the silence, she thought she could hear the echo of a child's laugh, and her mind was made up.

* * *

The pawn shop was just as dank on the inside as it looked from the street. The walls, what little could be seen behind the rows and rows of dusty junk, were yellow and stained from decades of lingering cigarette smoke. The filthy carpet under their feet crunched with every step. Even the man at the register looked liked he hadn't bathed in weeks.

"Welcome! Welcome gentleman!" he greeted them in heavily accented standard. He wasn't from around here. "I am Serge. Please, look around. Everything twenty percent off, just for you! We make a deal."

Vegeta didn't bother to look up as he continued to walk down the aisles. He picked up an old fashioned scouter off a shelf, fitting it over his ear and looking through the green lens before tossing in back into a box of equally useless crap. The wares displayed were worthless. Old, stained PTO uniforms, ancient translation boxes, commemorative plates with the Cold royal family on the front. If the proprietor sold every single piece of shit in this place for top credit, he wouldn't make enough to keep the doors open for a month. Vegeta looked at Piccolo who was eying the inventory with similar disgust. There was obviously a whole other line of merchandise for sale in this establishment that was not on display.

"None of this is what I'm looking for," Vegeta said, approaching the man behind the counter.

"And what are you in the market for?" he asked slyly, running his fingers over his greasy mustache.

"What do you have to offer?" Vegeta asked, leaning forward. Serge eyed both him and Piccolo suspiciously for a moment, trying to decide if they were straightforward customers or rats in disguise. Whatever he observed appeased him and he bent behind the counter.

There was a loud clank and metal coverings dropped down over the windows and door. Vegeta and Piccolo sprang into action, preparing to fight their way out of a trap, until two of the store's interior walls began to rotate, revealing on the other side pristine well-lit glass shelves of every kind of contraband one could imagine.

"Here, I show you every kind of weapon," Serge waved over to the far corner. "Ki simulator, anti-matter, fission bombs."

Vegeta looked over the various weapons, none of which interested him.

"What else?"

The man nodded and shook his finger in the air. "I know what you like," he said, leading them farther down the wall. "This, up the nose, will keep you up for party all night." he instructed, shaking a vile of pink powder in his left hand. "This, a drop in the eye and you feel no pain," he demonstrated, raising a dropper of red fluid in his right.

Vegeta huffed in frustration and began to doubt whether this back water would actually have what he needed. He wandered over to the opposite wall and his eyes fell on an assortment of promising looking technology.

"Ah. You want a vacation? You take this." Serge pulled a small round contraption off the wall and held it up to Vegeta's face. "Scan your eye. You leave behind on job, boss thinks you're on mission for three days. And you, off to Riviera City for gambling and ladies."

Vegeta picked up the item and looked it over before setting it back on the shelf. It wasn't what he was looking for, but they were getting warmer. He perused down the wall, until he came to something that resembled the tablet devise Bulma used back on Earth. He picked it up and flipped it over, noting the Geminon Imperial Army stamp engraved on the aluminum back. It was clunky and obviously not a new model, but it seemed to be in working order, powering on when Vegeta touched the screen.

"You are a serious man," Serge said, his voice dropping an octave.

Vegeta looked to Piccolo. The Namekian hadn't said a word the entire time they were there, but it was clear they were on the same page. He came to stand behind Vegeta and crossed his arms, glaring down at Serge. It was time to negotiate.

"I'll give you five thousand credits for this," Vegeta offered.

Serge stared at him for a moment before breaking out into high pitch peals of laughter. "You are not serious man. You are very funny man."

"I don't believe I told a joke." Vegeta said coldly as Piccolo cracked his knuckles behind him. If the man was intimidated by either of them, he didn't show it.

"What you have there, I sell you for one hundred thousand credits, cash," Serge stated solemnly, none of his previous mirth leaking into his tone.

"A hundred thousand?" Vegeta balked. "Now you must be joking. For this piece of shit?"

"You think I don't know what you use this for?" the man said, yanking the devise out of Vegeta's hands. "You are not first soldiers to come here to buy freedom. You want freedom, you pay for it."

Fine. So they were going to play hard ball. They were obviously not going to get this thing for pittance. Vegeta silently calculated exactly how much money they had at their disposal. If he emptied their accounts, took every last penny from each and every one of them, what was his best offer?

"Thirty thousand. Final offer."

"One. Hundred. Thousand," Serge responded, returning to his perch behind the counter and flipping the switch, swinging the walls back around and lifting the barriers from the windows and doors.

"What happened to everything being twenty percent off? I thought we were making a deal?" Vegeta responded angrily, not willing to accept that the matter was not up for negotiation.

"You want to buy some cup holders for your pod? I make a deal with you." Serge said, waving his hand towards the piles of shit that again lined the aisles. "You want out of PTO, you pay one hundred thousand credits."

Vegeta glared at the man as he turned his back on them in dismissal. He had been willing to do this the civilized way but if this sentient ball of grease thought the conversation was over, he was mistaken.

"I could just kill you and take it for free."

"Maybe," Serge responded, shrugging before dipping behind the counter and reemerging with a shoulder mounted class four plasma canon. At their current ki level, it was enough to blow a hole clean through Vegeta and leave a bloody mess of Piccolo right behind him. "Or maybe I kill you."

"You think that thing is enough to put a dent in me?" Vegeta bluffed.

"I think so. You want we should find out?" he asked cocking the weapon and looking at them from behind the crosshair.

Vegeta was not one to admit defeat gracefully. He growled obscenities, pushed past Piccolo, and kicked over boxes of junk on his way out.

"You come back with hundred thousand credits and I sell you your freedom." Serge called after them. "I am man of my word."

* * *

Bulma rubbed her backside gingerly, attempting to alleviate the pain of plummeting the last few meters down the elevator shaft and landing gracelessly on her ass. As she'd shimmied down the cables, she'd almost felt like she knew what she was doing for a moment. Now, staring up at the elevator dangling inaccessible hundreds of feet above her, she realized belatedly that the way she'd come was her only way out of this place. The muscles in her arms were screaming from the effort of lowering herself down. How in the world was she going to climb out again? Frankly, she didn't have time to think about the details of her escape right now. She was too focused on the sliding steel doors standing between her and an exit from this gods damn elevator shaft.

She tried to wiggle her fingers into the seam between the doors but it was hopeless. She wasn't going to pull them apart. She felt along the walls, trying to find some mechanism in the dark that she could work her magic on until she discovered a plastic panel. She scraped and clawed at it, digging her fingernails underneath until she managed to force it back, revealing the chaos of cables and blinking fiberoptic lights inside. This was going to take a while.

The security in the rest of the building was an absolute joke, at least when stacked against her skill set. She'd wrongly surmised, before diving head first into this half cocked plan of hers, that the entrance into the subterranean portion would be equally lax. She'd learned her mistake about a quarter of the way down when she'd smelled burnt hair and saw a few of her split blue ends floating down the elevator shaft. It was then she noticed the invisible lasers zig zagging all the way down to the ground level, detectable only by the flickering green lights along the walls. It had taken a combination of her eidetic memory for geometric equations and years of yoga classes to triangulate and maneuver around the deadly beams.

Now she was faced with a cluster of nonsensical wires, any of which could just as easily electrocute her as open the doors in front of her.

"This is stupid. This is crazy. What the hell am I doing down here?" she muttered to herself. She'd been repeating this mantra over and over again from the moment she'd torn one of the legs off her uniform, used the fabric to wrap her hands, and grabbed onto the steel elevator cable. The inner dialogue only got louder as she looked down, dangling from her metal life line, and realized the only thing that stood between her and a grisly death at the bottom of an elevator shaft was her pitiful upper body strength.

But, despite the voice in the back of her head that told her she was insane, that she should turn around back the way she came, she continued to root around in the tangle of wires until a tiny spark singed the tip of her fingers and the metal doors swung open. She'd gotten this far. There was no sense in giving up now.

Bulma pulled herself out of the elevator shaft and onto the ground level. An expansive hallway stretched on and on ahead of her, branching off and broken up by doors on either side every few meters. It was built like a labyrinth. It was almost as dark out here as the pitch black where she'd just come from. The only light source were the dim yellow overhead lights. It was dingy down here. She could see dark patches of mold growing up the walls and cobwebs cluttering the corners. If this was Mal's domain, it couldn't be more different than his sisters. Everything about Kali's palace was opulent, clean, new, and wholly intimidating. This was spartan, utilitarian, and… gross. It made her sick to think that her son had been kept in a place like this for so many months.

Surveillance cameras lined the hall and she hesitated for a moment before moving closer to inspect one, ensuring she had successfully deactivated it. She'd been able to suss out quite a few of the more obvious security measures controlled from within the panel in the elevator shaft, but she still moved cautiously, wary of tripping any defenses that she may have missed. But what she was more concerned about was running into someone and having nowhere to hide. She'd jiggled the handles on a few of the doors, but they were locked. If someone crossed her path, she was done for.

She continued to follow the narrow hallway straight ahead, not daring to venture down any of the maze-like branches or corridors, lest she get herself lost. It was silent down here, the soft sound of her boots on the concrete floors may as well have been blaring sirens. She was coming up on a dead end. She stopped and turned around, looking back from where she'd come when she heard the barest, faintest echo of weeping. The pit in her stomach widened to a chasm, threatening to swallow her whole. She remained stock still, attempting to gauge which direction it was coming from. She followed it, turning left, right, and left again down corridors, alcoves, and dead ends. Her head was spinning and no matter how quickly she moved it seemed the sounds were just a few steps ahead of her. Finally, she tracked it down and pressed her ear against a wooden door. She could hear the pitiful moans and there was no doubt in her mind that it was Trunks. She could pick her son's cries out of a lineup of wailing children. That was her boy.

She tested the door handle but it didn't budge. Should she knock? Trunks would unlock the door for her. But who else was in there with him? She needed to get to him. She felt adrenaline and panic start to flood her senses. She was about to do something reckless… again. Before she could stop herself, she was pushing away from the wall and lowering her shoulder, preparing to ram the door.

The first strike did nothing but the weeping on the other side went silent. When she hit again, she could feel her arm bruise and the door bending in its frame. She could hear shuffling and muted voices from inside the room. She reared back one last time but before her body could burst through splintered wood, she felt herself lifted off the ground and a vice tightening around her middle.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing down here?" a voice breathed next to her ear.

No! If this was it - if this was the end for her, she was going to see her baby one last time. She was going to get to the other side of that door if she had to kill or be killed to do it.

She planted her feet and anchored herself, but the arm and the barrel chest attached to it dragged her away, away from her son. The soles of her boots screeched as she was dragged backwards across the floor, leaving long black marks on the concrete in her wake. She kicked, twisted, and clawed at the arm snaked around her waist but it wouldn't budge. She drew air into her lungs to scream but a hand clamped over her mouth before any sound could come out. The door was getting farther away. She could see the handle move and a crack opened before the whole door swung open. But, before she could see in, she was pulled around a corner and out of sight. She cried and screamed soundlessly behind the hand fastened over her face. The fight drained out of her body and she went limp with despair. It was only when she stopped struggling did the body behind her loosen its grip enough for her to turn and see who had dragged her away.

Jaeko's normally red face was nearly purple and an engorged vein protruded on his neck. He looked down at her with a clenched jaw, bulging eyes, and barely contained rage.

"If you are intent on killing yourself there are much easier ways of going about it than coming down here. How the hell did you even… you know what. Don't tell me. The less I fucking know the better."

"Just let me go," Bulma sobbed still trying to twist her wrist out of Jaeko's grip as he dragged her back down the hall the way she'd come. "My son is down here. You brought him here. What did you do to him?!"

He stopped and yanked Bulma by the arm until it was twisted around her back painfully.

"I haven't done a damn thing to those little piglets of yours. They're both alive, the last I checked, which is more than I could say for you if you'd been caught by anyone other than me down here."

"So, you're not going to kill me?"

"No, I'm not going to kill you," Jaeko grumbled as they came to the same elevator doors she'd just broken through only a few minutes prior. He stooped slightly, allowing for a retina scan before pressing the button, calling the elevator to the ground level. They would be leaving the easy way.

"Why not?" Bulma asked defiantly as the doors opened.

"Are you trying to change my mind?" he responded, shoving Bulma in roughly and hammering on the button to bring them back above ground. "My soldiers work because they have a reason to live. Vegeta, as much as I detest the man, is one of my best soldiers. If you're dead, he has one less reason to complete his missions, or follow orders, or get out of bed in the morning."

Bulma had nothing to say to that, now realizing how selfish she'd been. She had no right to be so impulsive, so reckless with her own life. Vegeta depended on her just as much as she depended on him. Not to mention the fact that she held the key to all of their freedom. If she got herself killed, she would be dooming Vegeta, her friends _and_ Trunks to a life of slavery.

She followed Jaeko without resistance as he escorted her back to the barracks. He spent the few minutes it took to get there making it abundantly and graphically clear what would happen to her if she tried to sneak out at night again.

"Don't think just because I'm not going to murder you tonight that you're getting away with this. You may be too weak to survive a beating from me but Vegeta certainly isn't. He clearly needs a lesson on how to control his woman."

Bulma glared at Jaeko's retreating back before slamming her dormitory door behind him.

* * *

Stealth had never been Vegeta's strong suit and yet, lately, he kept finding himself in situations that required it. He'd waited until the small hours of the morning before slipping out of his room at the brothel to case the pawnshop, waiting for the streets to empty before making his move. Breaking in through the front door would be impossible, not without being seen. He had just enough access to his ki to half fly, half jump onto the roof of the building. There, he found an undefended entry point. He broke through the pathetically inadequate deadbolt on the roof access door and descended into the closed shop.

When they'd left earlier in the evening, he'd listened to Piccolo's attempts to talk him out of this very scenario. They'd find another dealer on another planet who would sell them something similar for less. And if that didn't pan out, they would save up and pool their resources. Sure, it might take months, maybe even years. But doing something as stupid as attempting a burglary was not an option. They had no idea what kind of security measures the proprietor had in place. Not to mention the fact that they were already in hot water with their superiors. Getting caught stealing contraband with the intention of deserting was a great way to convince Kali to butcher them all in the most gruesome way imaginable. Vegeta feigned interest and nodded halfheartedly where appropriate. Piccolo just grumbled about pig headed Saiyans, but notably made no further attempt to dissuade him.

The attic space was packed to the rafters with crap waiting to line the shelves of the store below. Vegeta tread lightly on the rickety wooden stairs but they still creaked with every step. The shop was deserted on the ground floor. He scanned the area for any security measures but didn't expect to find any. A man like Serge didn't earn a living by drawing attention to himself. There would be no alarms and there certainly wouldn't be any cameras.

Vegeta vaulted over the front counter and searched underneath for whatever mechanism would reveal the worthwhile merchandise. There was no obvious big red button but he felt around until he heard a click and then watched as the walls spun around again. The room was illuminated by the light of the display cases and that's when he noticed there was someone standing in the center aisle of the store.

"You are not smart man," Serge said as he leveled a laser guided ki riffle between Vegeta's eyes. It wasn't as big or flashy as the plasma canon but it was equally deadly.

"How did you…"

"Sneak up on you? Life sign scrambler," he said, shaking the metallic bracelet of his left wrist. "Very useful. I could have sold to you but you leave so angry."

"Maybe I was too hasty," Vegeta said, slowly lifting his hands in the air.

"Too late." He saw Serge's trigger finger twitch and dove behind the counter a second before a deadly blast of energy sailed over his head, hitting the cash register and sending loose change and bills flying into the air. Vegeta ducked low as Serge stalked closer to the counter until he could peer over the edge, lowering the riffle and taking aim at his target once again.

"No deal for thieving rats."

Vegeta grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it aside, barely flinching as the blast whizzed past the side of his head. He rammed the stock into Serge's face, shattering his nose with a wet crack. Serge screamed in pain and loosened his grip on the weapon long enough for Vegeta to wrestle it from him and turn the barrel in the opposite direction.

"Please," he sputtered through the blood gushing from his fractured nose. "Don't kill me. You want the tablet? Take it," he said, motioning to the wall lined with contraband technology. Vegeta momentarily redirected his focus, noting that the item was back on the shelf in the same place he'd originally found it.

"Take anything you want. Take everything. I don't tell anyone."

Vegeta took a moment to consider his options. He didn't actually have to kill this scum bag. It's not as if he could go to the authorities and report that his illegal merchandise had been stolen. Serge wouldn't tell a soul what had happened tonight. And, if Vegeta played his cards right, he might even be able to leave here with a valuable underworld contact.

"Stand up," he ordered the sobbing man on his knees.

"Please, I promise. Anything you want. I have fam…"

There was a loud bang followed by a fine spray of blood, brain and skull that formed a mist over Vegeta's face. He wiped the gore from his eyes and looked down at the decapitated body sprawled on the floor.

Serge had made the mistake of reaching into his pocket. Vegeta bent down and removed the still warm hand to carefully retrieving the item inside, expecting to find some highly deadly, extremely illegal weapon inside. It was a leather wallet. On the inside flap was a picture of a woman and two smiling children. He dropped the billfold on the body and wiped his gloved hands on his uniform like he'd just handled something dirty.

The idiot obviously had it coming, Vegeta justified to himself. What kind of criminal didn't know how to conduct themselves when faced with the barrel of a gun. Keep your hands visible and don't make any sudden movements. He must have been suicidal.

He stepped over the body, careful to avoid the slippery puddle on the floor. He plucked the tablet off the shelf and fished inside his breastplate for the capsule Bulma had given him before he'd shipped out. He hesitated a moment, considering Serge's previous plea. If he did take everything, they would not only have the means to escape the PTO but the funds to live comfortably on the edge of the known universe for years to come.

Vegeta looked back at the scene behind him before encapsulating the tablet and slipping out of the store the same way he'd come in.

The brothel was dead for the night, so he didn't have to explain his grisly appearance to anyone as he shambled back to his room. Piccolo was at the door waiting for him.

"You broke in," he accused.

"There were some complications," Vegeta responded, removing his red-stained gloves. It hadn't escaped Piccolo's attention that Vegeta was covered in blood and yet miraculously uninjured.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then I don't need to know any more than that."

* * *

"Why do we have to do this again?" Trunks complained as he picked at the electrodes stuck to his skin.

"We're testing how strong you've gotten," Mal responded as he peeled back another adhesive on the boy's chest. "You've been training so hard. Don't you want to know if it's working?"

"Can't you feel our power going up?" Trunks asked excitedly.

"That's not one of my skills," he smiled down at the fidgeting lavender mop. "But I can tell you're both so much more powerful than when we first met. Soon you'll be able to transform."

"We'll be Super Saiyans!"

"You'll be strong. Maybe almost as strong as Kali."

"I don't like her," Trunks grumbled looking around the room conspiratorially, as if the witch herself might be hiding around the corner.

"I know you don't." Mal reassured. "But soon, you won't have to see her anymore."

"Are you going to kill her?" Trunks inquired eagerly. There was a thin strain of malice in the boy's tone that hadn't been there a few weeks ago.

"I'm not strong enough to kill her."

"My dad could kill her," Trunks stated with certainty.

Mal forcefully ripped off the last electrode from Trunk's skin, causing his eyes to water.

"Maybe. Your father has killed a lot of people."

Trunk's hadn't meant to bring up his father. He knew Mal didn't like it. It happened less and less now. Goten had stopped talking about Gohan and Piccolo and didn't even cry for his mom at night anymore. But every once in a while, Trunks would slip and say something without meaning to.

"Do you still think about him?" Mal asked as he applied soothing pressure to the sensitive skin stung by the adhesive.

"I still miss my parents sometimes," he admitted bashfully.

"Of course, you do." Mal dropped to his knees to sit eye level with his ward. "But you know they don't miss you."

Tears began to well up in the boy's eyes and he averted his gaze.

"They abandoned you to save themselves. Do you think they would have done that if they loved you?"

A moment passed before Trunks shook his head in sad acknowledgement. He'd been left behind. He knew that.

"But you know that I'll always be there for you. I'll never leave you."

The tears he'd been holding back burst through his feeble barrier with a sob and he buried his head in Mal's black clad shoulder. He was safe here.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the wait on this chapter. Work kind of caught up with me after the holdays and it was almost impossible to find the time to write. As always, thanks to bitchytimemachine for betaing. I hope it was a good read!


	12. Chapter 12

Hello? Is anyone still out there? It's been a while since the last update so I'll give you a recap. Vegeta was on the lookout for a contraband devise. He found one but negotiations over the price got messy. Meanwhile, Bulma has found where Mal has been keeping the boys but was intercepted by Jaeko before she could make contact.

 **Chapter 12**

Vegeta spent the rest of the night cleaning blood stains from his uniform and planning a convincing cover story should the local authorities make trouble for him. He needn't have bothered. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the pawnshop across the street as he and his hungover squad checked out of their accommodations in the early hours of the morning. Uniformed officers dug through cardboard boxes of contraband marked EVIDENCE, pocketing the best items and tossing the junk back into the pile. No one bothered to stop them for questioning as they ambled back to the docks, shielding their eyes in the too bright morning sun. After inspecting the pods and generously tipping the attendant as promised, they were off.

It wasn't until they arrived back at base that Vegeta felt his nerves start to prickle. He clutched the PTO issued 'capsule' in one hand, grounding himself with the sensation of the sharp cube digging into his palm. His other hand itched to dig into the front of his uniform where he'd secreted Bulma's capsule, just to reassure himself it was still there.

Jaeko greeted them as they disembarked. Vegeta tossed him the little black box containing the revolting item he'd retrieved from their purge mission. He hadn't exactly been expecting an 'ata boy' and a pat on the head from his superior officer, but the right hook to the jaw came as somewhat of a surprise. He didn't bother asking what he'd done to deserve it. Jaeko never needed a reason. Vegeta was relieved that it didn't seem to have anything to do with the murder he'd committed or the devise he had hidden on his person. After shaking out his fist, Jaeko wordlessly passed out their pay slips and left them to unpack their pods.

It was late by the time they made it back to the barracks. Bulma was already sleeping and barely stirred as they threw themselves into their bunks. Hypersleep was hardly restful and, within minutes, the room was filled with the snores of the exhausted soldiers. Vegeta listened until he was sure they were all dead to the world before gently nudging the woman next to him.

"Five more minutes," she mumbled with her eyes still closed.

"We need to talk," he insisted, shoving her limp legs out of bed and onto the floor. Bulma stumbled behind him as he pulled her towards the empty bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind them. He twisted the hot and cold knobs on the sink, trusting the sound of running water to obscure their whispers from any eavesdropper.

"Can't this wait until tomorrow?" Bulma droned as she leaned against Vegeta's shoulder, nearly falling asleep standing up.

"No, it can't."

She was immediately startled awake by the sound of a capsule discharging behind her. Her eyes went wide, and a smile spread across her face as the smoke cleared, revealing the shiny silver technology.

"You work fast," she said, snatching up the item and seating herself on the cool tile floor. "I thought it would take months to find something like this. Where did you get it?"

"We had a layover. I found it in a pawnshop."

"Finally, some luck on our side. I hope it wasn't too expensive. I know we're low on funds."

"We got a good deal," Vegeta said, avoiding eye contact. He braced himself for more questions about the origin of the devise, but she was already too busy powering it on and tapping away.

"Can you use it?"

"I sure can," she assured. "This thing is pinging off a network address all the way in the Sierra Quadrant. There's no way they'll be able to track what we're doing."

"How long will it take you to…" He wasn't able to finish his question before his left eye began to twitch and tingle. A light shone out of the socket, spotlighting Bulma's face as he gazed at her.

"Linking to the chip is the easy part. Once you have the access code it's basically like connecting to a bluetooth device."

Vegeta blinked several times as the black and white screen of the tablet came into fuzzy focus on one side of his vision, while he observed the dark and dingy bathroom with the other.

"Kami, this thing is… incredible," Bulma breathed in awe as she flipped from screen to screen, making Vegeta's head spin.

"You can fiddle with it later. Just turn it off," he demanded, knowing she would spend hours playing with the thing if he let her.

"It's not that simple. There is no off switch. I have to manually adjust each function and it looks like there are a lot more of them than we thought."

"What do you mean?"

"There's an inbuilt polygraph test here. It can corrupt your auditory and visual awareness, make you see and hear things that aren't really there. It can even rewire your synaptic responses. They could have you barking like a dog or punching yourself in the face with the push of a button."

"Wonderful," he remarked snidely.

"I was able to shut off all of those functions, along with the 'loyalty incentive stimulus.' That's the catchy little name they give the function that sends electrical shocks through your brain until it's seeping out your nose."

"And what about the ki cap?"

"Relax. I'm getting to that," she assured him as she continued to tap through screens, entering indecipherable lines of code as she went. "I can't disable the geolocator. I can only widen the pinpoint radius up to ten thousand miles. But, once we get 800,000 parsecs away from Geminon, we'll be out of their radius entirely."

"That will take weeks. It won't be impossible to do but we'll have to be very careful how we travel."

"And the ki cap…" she hesitated. "I can't turn it off."

Bulma watched as the vigor drained from his body. His shoulders sank and his back slid down the wall until he was seated on the floor next to her. He stared blankly into the mirror across from them, reflecting the light from his illuminated eye. "Then all of this was for nothing."

"That's not true!" she insisted, rising up to her knees and bracing herself against his wide shoulders. "I can still raise the cap as far as the scale will allow. I can even give you access to the modulator, so you can raise and lower it at will," she said, demonstrating on the screen.

"It won't matter if I can't kill Kali."

"Would you be able to even without the chip?" He wanted to shove her away and tell her off for having so little faith in his abilities, but he'd been asking himself that very same question from the day they'd arrived on Geminon.

"I won't know until I try," he contended. "She's standing between us and Trunks."

"Maybe not."

"What do you mean?" he asked frantically. "What do you know?"

"Kali may not be as involved with the boys as we thought. It seems that her brother is the one who's holding them and, from what I've gathered, she's far more powerful than he is."

"How do you know? Do you know where they're being held? Why can't I feel Trunk's energy?" He questioned breathlessly. His eyes remained trained on her mouth, so as not to miss a single word.

She wanted so desperately to tell him everything. She'd been holding it all together for days, not sure whether to laugh or cry at any given moment. She knew where her son was. She knew he was alive and that he was safe. But she also knew she couldn't get to him. He was right beneath her feet but she couldn't wrap her arms around him. She wanted to tell Vegeta, to share the overwhelming burden of it, but she couldn't do that without risking it all. She remembered the overwhelming, agonizing need to get to Trunks once she'd found where he was being kept. She knew Vegeta would feel it too. He would throw caution to the wind just to get a glimpse of him just like she had, though he wouldn't be nearly as stealthy about it. She wouldn't put him in that position. She would keep it to herself until there was something they could do with the information she had.

"I don't know yet. But I will. Soon," she reassured him, hoping he wouldn't see through her deception. "We need an airtight plan before we even try to get him out. Kali may not be the one holding them but that won't stop her from killing us if she finds out what we're doing."

"We have to neutralize her somehow. Distract her. Maybe wait until she's off world." She could see the frenzied buzz in his eyes and feel it under his skin. She'd been feeling it herself for days, but it wouldn't get them anywhere tonight.

"We have a lot of plotting to do," she said as she dropped her forehead to his and rubbed calming circles over his temples. "But right now, you need to get some sleep."

"There's still something I need to do."

Letters and numbers whirred across Vegeta's cornea and when she looked down at the tablet, she could see the modules controlling his ki gradually rising towards the redline.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Someone is bound to notice that your stronger than you should be."

"I know how to keep my ki under control. No one will know," he hastily assured her, even as he felt the electrical charge rushing into his body like a tidal wave. The sensation was pure ecstasy, almost orgasmic. It surged in him, setting every one of his nerve ending alight. It kept growing, bigger and bigger until his aura burned and flickered from blue to gold. He could hear Bulma calling his name. He needed to reign himself in, but the torrential flow of power felt too good to stop. The air in the stuffy bathroom whipped around him and sparks burst from the light fixtures in the wall. He continued to reach farther, deeper, for every last drop of the life energy that flowed through his veins but there was a wall that he couldn't breach. It was maddening. He pushed against the artificial limit lodged in his brain. He could feel it pulsing behind his eyes and the more he strained against it the more painful the pulsing grew. Before he knew it, the unbridled pleasure he'd felt moments before turned to unbearable pain but he couldn't make it stop. Electricity sparked around him and his skin felt like it was on fire until he felt cool fingers wrap around his wrist, tugging him back to reality.

"Fuck!" Bulma tore her hand away like she'd just touched a hot stove and dashed to the sink, running her singed fingers under the icy water.

"Fuck," Vegeta panted, finally able to wrestle his ki back under control. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. It won't blister" she said, gingerly shaking out her hand and turning the water off. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he responded, embarrassed that she'd had to see him so out of control. "It was just… a lot at once."

"It's okay," she reassured, twining her uninjured hand with his. "Let's just go to bed,"

He was more than happy to comply. His adrenaline rush was quickly giving way to utter exhaustion and he followed Bulma out of the bathroom, ready to throw himself into bed, until she stopped short ahead of him. Every one of their roommates was wide awake, sitting up in their beds, staring at them.

"… What the hell was going on in there?" Tien ventured.

Vegeta froze, at a loss for words. They'd been caught red handed. He was prepared to lay it all on the line and hope for the best but, unsurprisingly, Bulma was quicker than him.

"Do I really have to spell it out?" she huffed as if she were genuinely annoyed at having to explain the bizarre happenings on the other side of the wall. "If I'd known you guys were such perverts, I could have sold tickets."

Vegeta's face turned a violent shade of red as she returned to their bunk, unperturbed. Their audience continued to stare at him as if he'd grown a second head and he considered blowing their cover, if it meant escaping the abject humiliation of it all.

"Whatever you guys are into is your business," Krillin said, rolling over to go back to sleep. "Just try to keep it down next time."

* * *

Breakfast the next morning was an uncomfortable affair. Vegeta suppressed his power without further incident, but that didn't stop the covert scrutiny he was currently being subjected to.

He pretended not to notice their sidelong stares and the whispered conversations that quickly stopped as soon as he sat down at the table. They could sense something was different, even if they couldn't quite place what it was. It wouldn't take long before they put the pieces together and he needed to have an actionable plan in place before that happened or he would find himself with another mutiny on his hands.

Bulma wanted to believe her friends cared about rescuing their son as much as she did, but Vegeta wasn't so naive. They would riot if they knew there was a way out of this nightmare and it was being withheld from them until they could complete the impossible task of rescuing two children that may or may not be alive. And as few fucks as Vegeta gave about their feelings or priorities, they were in a position to make things very difficult for him. Whether he liked it or not, they were a unit now, at least that's how their superiors saw things. If one of them stepped out of line, there would consequences for all of them. He wasn't going to let that happen.

The only person that he could trust in all of this, besides his mate, was the Namekian. Piccolo had been a surprisingly resolute ally and he could trust that their goals were aligned. Kakarot's children were sons to him in every way but blood. He would not leave Goten behind and he was equally as invested in protecting Gohan. Though Vegeta would sooner saw his own limbs off before he ever said it out loud, they had become something akin to friends over the preceding months.

Which is why, when Piccolo grabbed him by the back of his armor and pulled him down a deserted hallway, he opted to let it slide with a murderous glare rather than ripping the offending arm off, just to watch it sprout back.

"What the hell are you up to?" the Namekian insisted.

"I _was_ on my way to morning briefing," Vegeta responded as he corrected his breastplate.

"I thought we were keeping things under wraps. Powering up and nearly blowing the bathroom apart in the middle of the night was not part of the plan."

"They don't know anything." Vegeta assured him, though he wasn't totally certain of that fact himself.

"Not yet. They were asleep for the majority of your little fireworks display, but they'll figure it out eventually."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to someone who knows what to look for. I can tell there's something different but your ki is still… not right," he said, eying Vegeta like a dog walking on its hind legs. "Did it work? Was Bulma able to disable the chip?"

"More or less."

"What does that mean?"

"Apparently, it's not as simple as just turning it off. There are multiple components. Some can be disabled, and some can be modified."

"And…"

"I still don't have full access to my ki. I won't until the thing is removed entirely."

"Well, that's a setback," Piccolo sighed, leaning dolefully against the wall.

"It's one we'll have to work around. The important part is that we can leave this place without them tracking us or turning our brains into mush."

"We're _not_ leaving yet," Piccolo demanded as he straightened himself, towering over the Saiyan.

"I know that," Vegeta said, annoyed at the suggestion he intended to leave his son behind. "Bulma said that she's close to finding Trunks and Goten. It won't be much longer."

"And how much longer until Bulma works her magic on my chip?"

Vegeta had been wondering how long it would take him to bring that up. "It's not a priority right now. We just agreed we're not going anywhere in the immediate future."

"So it's only a priority when it's in your head?"

"The others are suspicious enough as it is. There's no reason to add fuel to that fire."

Piccolo chuffed impatiently and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't like this," he protested. "I've trusted you and Bulma with this plan so far but I'm not willing to just sit back and keep my mouth shut while the two of you make decisions for the rest of us."

Vegeta could appreciate the Namekian's grievances. If their roles were reversed, he would be frothing at the mouth to have even a fraction of his power back, and there was no chance in hell he would trust the key to his freedom in someone else's hands. But the stakes were too high to take any more unnecessary risks. All he could offer the man was his word, what little it was worth.

"It'll be done as soon as it's safe. In the meantime…I promise not to fuck you over," Vegeta said, averting his eyes awkwardly. It wasn't very often he gave assurances to anyone and it was even rarer still that he would put someone else's interests ahead of his own. Until now, it was something he'd reserved for his family alone. The whole thing made him itchy and he hoped the moment would be over soon.

"Wow. That was beautiful," Piccolo smiled with his hand over his heart, as if the Saiyan had just confessed his undying love.

"I'm glad you find this so amusing."

"No really. I'm truly touched."

"Would you shut the fuck up already. We're going to be late," Vegeta sneered, pushing past Piccolo.

"Wait! Don't you want to hold hands?" the Namekian called after him. It took quite a bit of self control not to turn around and punch the green out of him.

* * *

They made it to the briefing just in time to avoid a lashing from Jaeko, taking their seats as he marched onto the flight deck.

"Good morning. I hope you all got a good night's sleep because you're shipping out again at 0900," he said, ignoring the groans of protest from the squad. "It's only a day trip. You'll be back in time for dinner. We're short a few hundred foot soldiers after that jock strap incident last month, so you're being assigned a peace keeping mission."

Vegeta sat back and waited for the visual demonstration that generally accompanied their briefings, but he was left looking at a blank wall. It took him a few moments to realize the others were staring at something he couldn't see and a few seconds longer to realize that function of his scouter chip must have been disabled. This might pose a problem.

"Planet Dorsai is a steaming pile of shit in the Echo quadrant," Jaeko narrated as he gesticulated into empty space. "It has no significant natural resources to offer the Empire, other than its sentient population. Your job is to keep order while the slave traders conduct their business."

Before Jaeko could get into specific's they were distracted by limp wristed knock on the open door of the briefing room. A sweaty, sickly looking amphibious creature entered, his eyes rolling nervously in every direction.

"What?" Jaeko barked, causing the little man to visibly shake in his boots.

"… I'm supposed to deliver this," he whimpered, holding out a folded piece of paper. Jaeko snatched it out of his hand and dismissed the peon, sending him skittering back down the hall. Jaeko unfolded the missive, his brow dropping as he read.

"Prince…"

Vegeta's pulse jumped.

"What did I do now?"

"Nothing, as far as I know. Do you have something you want to confess to?" Vegeta shrugged giving nothing away.

"You're being pulled from this mission and reassigned," Jaeko elaborated. "You're going to Paradiso."

"Paradiso? That's a resort planet."

"This is a retrieval mission. No violence required."

"Retrieval of what?"

"How the hell should I know? It's classified. You'll find out when you get there."

"Why do I have to go? It sounds like a cake walk. Send someone else."

"You're going because Lady Kali has requested you specifically. You ship out immediately."

Vegeta tried to think of some explanation for why the empress would single him out but only one reason came to mind. If he had been found out, this was obviously a mission he wasn't meant to return from. But why send him to Paradiso to do it? Why the pretext? If Kali was on to him, she could kill him where he stood at any moment she pleased. And if she was trying to be sly about it, wouldn't it make more sense to send him somewhere less populated, with less chance of escape? Something about this wasn't adding up but he couldn't let on that he was suspicious. He'd have to play along for now.

"Great. Fine," he huffed in mock annoyance. "I guess I'm an errand boy now."

"You're not going alone. This is a two man job."

"I can handle it on my own. What's the worst that could happen on Paradiso? I get a sunburn?"

"I've learned from experience not to send soldier's to Paradiso unsupervised. They always come back past schedule, drunk, and carrying some antibiotic resistant strain of VD. You..." Jaeko said, pointing to Yamcha. "You're going with him."

Yamcha startled and looked around as if there was someone behind him. "What? Me? Why me?"

"Because no one will miss you on any mission of importance," Jaeko responded.

"This idiot is supposed to chaperone _me_?" Vegeta demanded, incredulous. "He's the most likely of any of them to go off the rails."

"You both better keep a close eye on each other," Jaeko warned. "I'll be timing this mission down to the second. If you come back late or I find out you've consumed alcohol or any other substances while in possession of Lady Kali's property, you'll be old and grey by the time they haul your asses out of the regen tanks."

Yamcha and Vegeta exchanged distrustful glares but the Saiyan looked away first. He was starting to feeling it again. That feeling like he was somehow responsible for someone other than himself and his own kin. Like he actually cared what fate befell the weakling just for being to close when the trap sprung shut on him.

"You're all dismissed. Report to your pods."

* * *

I'm sorry for the long wait between updates. Work and life stuff have caught up with me and it's a struggle to find time to write. I hope there's someone out there still reading this. If you are, please leave me a comment. I miss you guys when I'm away. Thanks again to bitchytimemachine for taking the time to beta for me!


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